Review: O.P.C. Turns Trash into Treasure at A.R.T.

Written by Eve Ensler; directed by Pesha Rudnick; Scenic Design, Brett J. Banakis; Costume Design, ESosa; Lighting Design Bradley King; Sound Design Jane Shaw; Projection Design, Shawn Sagady; Movement, Jill Johnson; Production Stage Manager, Taylor Adamik

Cast in order of Appearance:

Romi, Olivia Thirlby; Smith, Kate Mulligan; Bruce, Michael T. Weiss; Mrs. M and others, Nancy Linehan Charles; Sister Ro and others, Liz Mikel; Prakash and others, Babak Tafti; Kansas, Nicole Lowrance; Damien, Peter Porte

Performances and Tickets:

Now through January 4, 2015, American Repertory Theater, Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Mass.; tickets start at $25 and are available online at www.AmericanRepertoryTheater.org or by calling the Box Office at 617-547-8300.

In the 1967 movie The Graduate, a family friend advised recent college grad Ben Braddock that the key to success was wrapped in one word - plastics. Ah, if only a consumer warning had come with that divine prophecy.

Today, according to press notes provided by the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, more than 50 million plastic bottles end up in the trash every day. Every day. If not recycled, each bottle takes at least 450 years to decompose. If accumulation continues at this rate, it isn't much of a leap to imagine that soon interstellar barges will be transporting Earth's garbage to destinations unknown. But out of sight, out of mind, right? Well, not if you're playwright Eve Ensler whose new socio-political comedy O.P.C. is now enjoying its world premiere at the A.R.T.

In O.P.C., Ensler mounts a full-on assault against unbridled capitalism and the wasteful consumerism that results in garbage of many kinds - plastic bottles, unworn clothes, single-use wooden pallets, and the 40% of all American food that goes uneaten each year. She does so by pitting freegan activist Romi (Olivia Thirlby), who squats in a vacant apartment building and dumpster dives for food and reusables, against her uptight but politically liberal mother Smith (Kate Mulligan) who fears that her daughter's revolutionary lifestyle will harm her chances of ascending from attorney general to U.S. Senate. When Romi fashions (or rather, trashions) an exquisite campaign dress for her mother out of apricot peels, suddenly freeganism and capitalism become strange bedfellows, and a new political platform based on eco-fashion is born.

The trouble is, Romi feels that her ideals have been co-opted, and the more pressure that her mother and her publicist/boyfriend Damien (Peter Porte) put on her to sell out, the more emotionally disturbed she becomes. Suffering a breakdown which lands her in a psychiatric hospital, Romi is diagnosed with a new mental illness - O.P.C. (Obsessive Political Correctness). She's just too righteous for her own good.

Ensler and director Pesha Rudnick present O.P.C. as part parody, part farce. They are most successful in striking comic blows when riffing on daytime talk shows (I'm looking at you, Oprah), self-help gurus (Deepak Chopra), and high fashion (the devil truly does wear Prada). They also delightfully skewer the marketing-driven campaign process by having Smith's older daughter Kansas (a terrific Nicole Lowrance) serve as a data-spewing machine more obsessed with winning than her own mother is.

O.P.C. sputters, though, when the humor gets bogged down in the message. Romi spouts countless statistics as host of a web series "Waste Not Want Not" which she broadcasts from her squat and from various dumpster locations. Smith stumps from her perch on the campaign trail, and the sound bites come fast and furious. Too often we hear Ensler's preaching, although both Thirlby and Mulligan do manage to make their speeches flow naturally and earnestly. They end up giving life and dimension to their characters, making them a lot of fun to watch.

Also a hoot are an ensemble of players doing double and triple duty in cameo appearances. Liz Mikel as talk show host "P" bulldozes over her guests, asking and answering her own questions. Nancy Linehan Charles is particularly funny as a senior citizen and fellow freegan who seems to have come to the movement as much for company as for the cause. Babak Tafti provides comic and then real spiritual enlightenment first as Doctor Day and then as Romi's patient/friend Prakash.

Michael T. Weiss (so memorable as Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Huntington Theatre Company a few years ago) is somewhat wasted as Smith's second-banana husband Bruce. Yet, he lends balance and emotional support to both his wife and daughter Romi, suggesting that he admires each of them for their passion and beliefs. As the shrewd publicist Damien, Porte nicely embodies a young man caught between his desire to do good and the heady rush of power that comes with sudden financial and political success.

The real stars of O.P.C., however, are the remarkable sets and costumes by designers Brett J. Banakis and ESosa. Culling from local businesses and the Harvard Recycling Center, they and their crews have turned trash into treasures. Hundreds and hundreds of cardboard boxes from supermarkets and liquor stores have been turned into massive exterior walls. Wooden shipping pallets and a repurposed shopping cart have been transformed into the floors, walls and furniture of Romi's squat. What look to be thousands of plastic water bottles festoon the rafters of the Loeb Drama Center theatre serving as chandeliers and party streamers. Clotheslines are adorned with rows and rows of mittens while abandoned Barbie dolls and other discarded toys and trinkets decorate the scenery.

Romi's clothes, too, are trashioned from yoga mats, straws and coffee stirrers. An entire Fruit Skin haute couture line of high trashion dresses and menswear seem to have, in fact, been made out of vibrantly colored edible fruit rolls.

It's hard to say what kind of an impact O.P.C. will have on consumer-driven politics as usual. If it can get theater-goers laughing while also thinking about their own actions and outcomes, however, perhaps that's a good enough place to start.

PHOTOS BY EVGENIA ELISEEVA: Kate Mulligan as Smith and Olivia Thirlby as Romi; Nicole Lowrance as Kansas, Michael T. Weiss as Bruce, Olivia Thirlby and Kate Mulligan; Olivia Thirlby and Peter Porte as Damien; Olivia Thirlby; Liz Mikel, ensemble, Olivia Thirlby and Nancy Linehan Charles, ensemble; cast of O.P.C.