Scarcity

Written by Lucy Thurber

Directed by Jackson Gay

Atlantic Theater Company

336 West 20th Street

212-691-5919

 

Review by Sean Michael O’Donnell

 

Lucy Thurber may be the most promising playwright to come along in quite some time. After the success earlier this year of her critically-acclaimed play Stay, Thurber returns to the off-Broadway scene with her newest work, Scarcity. A brilliant meditation on class division in America, Scarcity chronicles one family’s decline against the backdrop of a uniquely American brand of poverty. The story is carried out with a brutal realism and raw emotion not often found on today’s off-Broadway stages.

 

No Way Out: Jesse Eisenberg and Maggie Kiley are trapped in lower-class hell in Scarcity, Lucy Thurber’s astute meditation on America’s working poor.

 

Martha works the nightshift at the local department store while her husband Herb drinks away their earnings at the neighborhood bar. They live on food stamps and charity, although there always seems to be enough cash for cigarettes and booze. Home is a cramped and messy house the couple shares with their two children, 11-year-old Rachel and 16-year-old Billy. Rachel reads tarot cards to escape the harsh realities of life with Martha and Herb while Billy finds salvation at school through his overly attentive teacher. When Billy is offered the opportunity to attend a prestigious prep school, he must choose between his responsibility to his family and his aspirations for the future.

 

Thurber’s characters are profoundly flawed in ways that are both horrifying and compelling. Under Jackson Gay’s outstanding direction, the members of this peerless ensemble attack their roles with unwavering conviction. Kristen Johnston is a superb as Martha, possessing the ability to marry comedy and drama in a single line — a perfect match for Thurber’s complex script. Johnston gives an intensely powerful performance, embracing Martha’s ugliness to bring a remarkable humanity to an often-grotesque character. Jesse Eisenberg makes Billy’s desperation palpable, his intensity frightening in its scope as he delivers a thrilling performance of extraordinary depth. Michael T. Weiss is haunting as Herb while Maggie Kiley as Billy’s teacher perfectly embodies the overbearing arrogance of a “have” in a “have-not” world.

 

Unapologetic in its exploration of classism, Scarcity confronts issues rarely discussed in a country where the poor are all-too-often ignored.