Review: AFFLUENZA, starring Noah Schnapp, Riverside Studios

The nepo-baby discourse is evergreen. Every day, someone with wealthy and influential parents gets away with a degree of privilege that’s unachievable to us peasants. From Hollywood to the world of business, these children are fed with a silver spoon, unaware of the consequences of real life. Andy Sandberg’s new play explores the aftermath of a deadly car accident for one of this lot in a simply preposterous production.

Stranger Things alum  Noah Schnapp is top billed, though he is selling a show that has him on stage for under a third of its running time. It’s the type of project that slyly attempts to conceal its shortcomings under opulent optics. Unfortunately, not even a lavish set by Charlie Corcoran can hide the fact that this is a tasteless, aimless, pointless piece of theatre.

The provocation at the core – is a child to blame for their parents’ failure in raising them? – is exquisite, but Sandberg doesn’t do anything with it. It offers the question in the first act, but doesn’t dig further than that or include any level of analysis. Then, suddenly, he abandons the whole thing right after the interval. Sandberg doesn’t tell a story; he desperately tries to sell an idea.

The word “AFFLUENZA” is a portmanteau of affluence and influenza used to describe the psychological and social effects of the former on a person. Sandberg had the chance to intellectualise privilege by applying the Socratic method to the subject, but belly-flops in a puddle of clichés and pleonasms. What a shame.

We are instantly introduced to an unlikeable, insufferable set of parents (Juliet Cowan and Donald Sage Mackay) who are debating with a lawyer (Bridgerton baddy Rupert Young) how their son Dylan (Schnapp) could walk scot-free after killing two people and injuring a handful more. “This will ruin his life. This will ruin our life!” Cowan shrieks. The victims aren’t even an afterthought. 

Dylan – ungrateful, unrepentant, and annoyed that he can’t join his friends during his summer break – doesn’t feature in this conversation at all. The notion that he has no concept of right or wrong because he was never taught it lends itself to a complex and timely discussion. Yet, Sandberg opts to go for the unchallenging and unexciting path, refusing to delve into what would make his play worth seeing.

The plot is all over the place, including a checkbox list of issues that he thinks are relevant to the cause. Hence, we are subjected to tangents on racism, misogyny, and the fabricated nature of reality television. Now, what does the latter have to do with anything here? Well, Dylan grew up to squander his family’s money and divorce his wife, so his white-trash girlfriend got them airtime to survive. That’s the extent of the second act.

If AFFLUENZA is supposed to be social satire, it fails its objective. If it’s meant to be an eye-opening look into the degradation of the American upper-class, it’s bland and predictable. If it’s expected to be a genre-bending production about the absurdity of life under capitalism, it needs an entire re-write to tighten its aim and actually say something worthy of sitting through it. As it is, it’s only a massive waste of time disguised as a pretentious night at the theatre.

It’s almost unimportant to talk about the performances, as none of them make a difference. Young is the most impressive of the bunch, maintaining a steady tone throughout. Schnapp is merely adequate, but the script wouldn’t allow him to be anything else. The rest of the cast amble between wooden, overdramatic, underachieving, and eager to see the curtain drop. It’s understandable: AFFLUENZA doesn’t add anything to the landscape. It’s not deep nor funny, it lacks pace and determination, and it’s ultimately an atrocious watch. Sandberg’s tenure as Mainstage AD isn’t off to a great start

AFFLUENZA runs at Riverside Studios until 28 November

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