Big Time: Scenes from a Service Economy

Written by Keith Reddin

Directed by Steven Shachter

At the Hasty Pudding Theater

Through April 28

BIG Time: Scenes from a Service Economy, one of two offerings in the American Repertory Theater's spring festival currently running at the Hasty Pudding Theater, has a lot in common with television melodrama. As in TV, the dialogue is snappy, the plot fast-paced and the sex scenes never quite consummated. In fact, for TV junkies, Big Time has only one drawback--it actually costs money.

Those people looking for a break from the electron-based spittle that dribbles from your tube should forgo Big Time, where even the stage is designed to mimic the glowing box. Subtitled "Scenes from a Service Economy," this recent play by Keith Reddin rarely has anything to offer that isn't of McQuality. Even though a pleasantly short production of 75 minutes--with commercial breaks that's a 90 minute TV special--Big Time rapidly becomes tiresome and repititious.

Our central character is Paul (William Converse-Roberts), a young, success-driven banker. We see him making connections at cocktail parties, bad-mouthing fellow-workers to his boss and jetting to exotic lands to work out deals. His significant other, Fran (Alice Manning), is just as stereotypical (but then, don't they always come in twos). She feels her pink-collar job as a graphics artist fails to stimulate her intellect and is unsatisfied with her romantic life. So Fran sleeps with...Peter (Peter Crombie), Paul's old '60s throwback friend, who at least talks of the old idealism even if he too has actually lost it.

If any three horsemen could cause calamities like the stock market crash it is this cast of characters. They offer every tired cliche that has been marketed by a dozen writers for the yuppie generation. For fans of Tama Janowitz, Fran bewails her inability to leave Paul because she'll be without a decent place to live. For Jay McInerney aficionados, there's cocaine. For the fashion-conscious, there's braces. And of course, we couldn't forget the piped-in classic hits that accompany each scene change.

THE main problem with this play is the script. To say it's inane would be an understatement. Paul, the banker, is accused of not producing, of being a mere paper-mill. Does this symbol for an age offer the remotest response? Forget it. An unsavory type whom you can be sure Paul doesn't meet at Le Cirque confronts this modern success story by questioning the meaning of his life if there is nothing he is willing to die for. Does Paul put up at least an inarticulate defense for the lightness of his being? No time; a blackout and scene change take priority.

Perhaps the 1980s have been such a banal era that cliches are the only appropriate way to comment on it. At least that would explain the odd decision to include an excerpt from the Newsweek article christening yuppies in the program. Just in case it wasn't already in the zeitgeist of everyone in the theater, the article assured the existence of a common culturally stereotyped language. Yet it doesn't seem that even Reddin actually believes that yuppies are without any individual quirks or desires. The actors, who are stiff and who often seem to be unsure of themselves, fail in the rare opportunities the script gives them to show real emotion and desire.

In fact the play is at its best when the plot calls for pure yuppiedom. The staccato exchange of pleasantries and other banter at an art-show opening cocktail party is admirably done. The best performance is turned in by Paul's boss, Diane (Sandra Shiply), whose locked jaw and frozen smile never let down, even though she suffers the most terrible tragedies. Of course real yuppies, because of the frequently superficial aspects of their lifestyles, are actors too, so it would make sense that professional actors would be at their best in imitating them. The problem is that this dual nature is never exposed, since the actors, or perhaps the script, never remove the Yuppie mask.

The best part of this play is the set, designed by Bill Clarke. Its stark cubelike structure, with a sloping floor forming a receding perspective, is complemented by a modern modular design. It could be a television set but it also has elements of a Japanese shadow box or a puppet box.

Unfortunately the direction makes little use of the dimensional possibilities of the set. Instead, Big Time mimics only the flat qualities of television sitcoms.