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Three Hotels
By Jon Robin Baitz
Directed by Michael Colucci & Johnny Garcia
At The Actors Workshop Theatre (soon to be Redtwist Theatre)
1044 W. Bryn Mawr
Chicago, IL
Call 773-728-play, tickets $20- $25 - $30
Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 8 pm
Sundays at 3 pm
Running time is 80 minutes with no intermission
Through January 19, 2008
Riveting story of international corporate greed unfolds
The soon-to-be Redtwist Theatre (the Actors Workshop Theatre) presents two of their finest actors, Jan Ellen Graves and Brian Parry in Jon Robin Baitz’s 1996 Pulitzer Prize finalist--Three Hotels. This two-hander utilizes three monologues to tell the story of corporate greed at the expense of mothers and babies in third world nations through the eyes of Ken and Barbara Hoyle.
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We meet Ken (Brian Parry) as he explains, justifies and expounds on his role for a large multi-national corporation where he rationalizes compromising his personal morals with his professional responsibility toward corporate profits. Playwright Baitz’s model was his father who worked for Carnation Company. Ken explains how the corporate culture placed morality and social ethics beneath the pursuit of profits. Ken is an amoral corporate functionary always maneuvering toward a higher rung on the company’s latter of success. Brian Parry uses all his acting skills with his outstanding elocution and articulation to paint a picture of a man who has lost his soul and become a true cynic without compassion as a corporate monster. Parry presents Ken as a likeable yet immoral man who believes profits need to be made even at the expense of third world babies.
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His company tricks mothers to use their over-priced baby formula instead of mother’s milk to nurse their babies. He proudly used women dressed as nurses and nuns to persuade mothers to use his product—that—when mixed with contaminated drinking water led to the death of thousands of babies. Ken and the company denied any wrong doing—after all—profits are king! Ken’s job is to travel around third-world locations and fire any company executive who doesn’t aggressively market the baby formula according to company policies and tactics. Exuding charm with Baitz’s caustic wit, Parry warmly presents the cynically amoral Ken brilliantly. Long monologues test an actor’s ability to communicate. Parry and Baitz together present a most engaging tale.
When Barbara (Jane Ellen Graves) presents her speech to the corporate wives seminar, she gets caught up remembering the death of their 16 year old son in Brazil. While warning the wives on the pitfalls of living abroad, she warns the women to not let their husbands become “the Albert Speer of baby formula” as her husband Ken has become. Her strong criticism of the company has dire consequences for Ken. Graves deftly delivers enough pent-up rage to be quite effective.
In the third act, Ken talks of life after leaving the company. The use of three hotels as metaphors to the transient nature and impermanence of one’s actions works nicely. Hotels just aren’t reality to Ken.
This well written and finely acted play is a disturbing glimpse into the international corporate world where profits supersede social responsibility. Kudos to Redtwist Theatre Company (Actors Workshop Theatre) for mounting this timely work.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: December 14, 2007
Jeff Recommended
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