Review: DO YOU FEEL ANGER? at Marin Theatre
What did our critic think of DO YOU FEEL ANGER? at Marin Theatre?
Marin Theatre concludes its 24-25 season with Mara Nelson Greenberg’s Do You Feel Anger?, about an empathy coach hired to train workers at a debt collection agency facing major lawsuits for their abusive communication skills. It starts out smart and funny, with people barely able to understand feelings much less empathy for others. But it quickly degrades into a barrage of ugly interactions with no resolutions.
Is this absurdism, satire, or farce? After the first ten minutes of humorous introduction of the characters, the jokes fall flat from repetition with no change in personality arcs. How many times can these horribly misogynistic males ask for blowjobs with no reciprocation? The alpha males are all ‘horn’- vacuous airheads with no sense of propriety. There’s actually a scene where a man is told what a period is and loses his shit. The female character is weak and submissive, barely able to communicate her weekly mugging in the workplace cafeteria. She’s told to pretend she has a boyfriend to deflect the males come-ons. There’s an ongoing mention of a demeaning ‘piss chart’ which is never explained.
It's a shame to waste the talented cast including comic gem Phil Wong who can do no wrong in any role, and the wonderful Sam Jackson as the empathy coach plopped into an unworkable situation. There’s a subplot about her broken family and another female worker considered ‘crazy’ for trying to burn down the office. Linda Maria Giron is great as Eva, the maligned female worker and Joseph O’Malley is over-the-top as Jon, the office manager. Max Forman-Mullin is equally ridiculous as Howie, a major horndog. Becca Wolff (Weightless, Our Country) directs the action. Do you feel the Anger? No anger, boredom maybe.
Do You Feel Anger? continues through June 29th. Tickets are available at marintheatre.org or by calling 415-388-5208.
Photo credits: David Allen
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