Constructivists Present Satirical Comedy in ‘The Totalitarians’

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Image: The Constructivists - theconstructivists.org

The Constructivists 'The Totalitarians'

The Constructivists 'The Totalitarians'

A sweepingly chaotic comedy is summoned to one of the smallest stages in town this October as The Constructivists present Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s The Totalitarians. Director Jaimelyn Gray conjures a cleverly unbalanced comic energy to the stage for a very contemporary story of the frazzled political dynamics lurking deep in the ragged heart of the U.S. Gray harnesses a wide range of talent into an explosively witty and often bizarre allegorical piece of political satire. What Gray brings to the stage is so strange that it nearly reaches the level of weirdness lurking in the political world outside the theatre.

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Photo courtesy The Constructivists

The Constructivists 'The Totalitarians'

Matthew Scales and Haley Ebinal in The Constructivists' 'The Totalitarians'

Opening night Assistant Director Rebekah Farr was radiantly aggressive as Francine, a political speechwriter who has been hired to help out with a blazing dumpster fire of a political campaign. (The talented Haley Ebinal is cast in the role but was unable to perform opening night due to illness.) Maggie Marks is charmingly oblivious as the flashy Sarah Palinesque candidate that Francine is forced to write for. Though Francine dreads working for a crazy, vacuous political figure, she is quickly swept-up in the energy of her own momentum.

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Photo courtesy The Constructivists

The Constructivists - 'The Totalitarians'

Matthew Scales and Ekene Ikegwuani in The Constructivists' 'The Totalitarians'

It’s a momentum that puts her at odds with her husband Jeffrey. Matthew Scales deftly wields a cleverly understated comic precision in the role of Francine’s husband. He’s a doctor who is caught up in the paranoid political fervor of one of his patients. Ekene Ikegwuani is a powerful presence onstage as a man of grand delusions who Jeffrey begins to follow into an ill-advised two-person revolution. Husband, wife and their accompanying psychotics are brought to a satisfying, darkly comic collision in a thoroughly satisfying comedy.

The Constructivists’ production of The Totalitarians runs through Oct. 29 at the Interchange Theater Co-Op, 628 N. 10th St. For ticket reservations and more, visit www.theconstructivists.org.