Photo Credit: Michael Brosilow
Junk originally meant “worthless,” but in the last century it gained a second meaning: heroin. Perhaps playwright Ayad Akhtar had that double-meaning in mind when he addressed the 1980s bond market in Junk. The pursuit of money can be an addiction as heavy and destructive as any drug.
For Junk’s Midwest premiere, Gregory Linington plays the central character, Robert Merkin, standing for the Wall Street wizards who sped the process of social decomposition down the economic avenue during the Reagan era. Embodying the smug eagerness of the greed-is-good crowd, Merkin destroys in the name of creating wealth. He helps transform America from a nation that makes things to a nation whose elites make money regardless of the cost to everyone else. But pure evil? Linington gives Merkin a moment of doubt and makes believable his sole virtue—loyalty, especially to his co-conspirator, the lawbreaking lawyer Raúl Rivera (Justin Huen). No one in Junk is pure.
Junk’s plot centers on Merkin’s scheme to leverage a hostile takeover of a family-owned steel manufacturer on behalf of the feckless but personable entrepreneur Israel Peterman (Demetrios Troy) by selling junk bonds to raise capital. The bonds produce debt and debt becomes habit forming. Merkin is opposed by the company’s owner, Thomas Everson (James Ridge), an old school industrialist whose noblesse oblige extends to his workers and the city where they live, and old school plutocrat Leo Tresler (Brian Mani), who worries that the America he knows is slipping away. However, neither is fully heroic. Both share a streak of anti-Semitism and Tresler is a pompous predator. Likewise, business reporter Judy Chen (Rebecca Hirota) figures out the game but is sexually manipulative and silenced by money. U.S. Attorney Giuseppi Addesso (Dominic Comperatore) wants to convict Merkin while pursuing his own agenda.
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With a vein of satire running through the high drama, Junk touches subjects including money-driven politics, the short-sightedness of unions, the vagaries of plea bargaining, the decline of public morality and belief in the common good. The ethnic resentments come in many colors. Junk’s large cast is studded with informers, moles and dupes. The play’s Milwaukee-born author has written a complicated yet understandable story on the intricacies of debt and market prices—subjects that freeze most minds—with a firm grip on the sound and rhythm of American speech.
Director Mark Clements does ringmaster’s work, moving dozens of characters to and fro with speed and efficiency across an uninterrupted two-hour sequence of conversations. Furniture rolls in and out, and projections onto the harsh geometry of the set indicate changing sites and cities. A slight echo trails secret talks in a parking garage between Merkin and a dubious associate, the chain-smoking Boris Pronsky (Jonathan Wainwright).
It’s a splendid production of a play about genuine believers in the efficacy of unchecked self-interest. “Is this the future?” Emerson asks in despair. The future is now.
Through Feb. 17 at Quadracci Powerhouse, 108 E. Wells St. For tickets visit milwaukeerep.com or call 414-224-9490.
