Theater Review: "Kings" explores grimy DC lobbying
Kings
Written by Sarah Burgess
Directed by Thomas Kail
Starring Eisa Davis, Zach Grenier, and Gillian Jacobs
New York Public Theater
March 22, 2018
Kings is the sort of play that seems to exemplify the NY Public Theater. It is well-crafted, lefty political, and plays as somewhat of a tonic to liberal New Yorkers dismayed by the current environment. Playwright Sarah Burgess is known for her 2016 play Dry Powder which skewered the world of equity traders (or not-so-equity traders). Kings does the same for Washington D.C. lobbying. It was an interesting 100 minutes, but failed to cover much new ground in the familiar Washington-insider format.
The play centers around Rep. Sydney Millsap (a convincing Eisa Davis), a newly elected congressman from Dallas, and the first woman and person of color to serve from her district. She comes with many ideals, but quickly sees that much of her time will be not be devoted to effecting change, but instead to getting re-elected in less than two years. Since fundraising is required for that, lobbyists become a steady environmental hazard, despite her reluctance to engage with them. She is pressured to raise money for her party as well, and since new rules dictate that she cannot do this in her office, she either goes to a cramped call center or does it from her chilly car. She is pressured by her party’s influential senator John McDowell (played to the prototypic wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing DC hilt by Zach Grenier) to toe the party line and not vote her conscience in supporting a fiscal reform bill designed to tax equity traders on their income, thus denying them the loophole of “capital gains”. When she supports the bill nonetheless, her party runs a true believer against her in the primary. Here the play takes an unlikely turn, and she opts out of running for congress but instead challenges Senator McDowell for his Texas seat. That this neophyte without independent wealth would be competitive in a Texas senate primary against the party’s leader and possible presidential candidate strains credulity, but makes for a good, rather old-fashioned story of little guy trying to make good. Superimposed on this story are the efforts of two lobbyists, one for medical associations, the other for financial firms, who interact with the two politicians in ways simultaneously unctuous, seductive, and informed. The four characters combine in different pairings to give a survey of current politician-lobbyist sociology in Washington.
Ms. Burgess writes crisply and with good forward motion, matched by efficient direction by Thomas Kail. The set is sparse, mostly set with a series of tables. There is an amusing, if odd, appearance of Chili’s sizzling fajitas which imbued the small theater with pseudo-Tex-Mex aromas for a bit. The play was entertaining, but rather in the way of a good TV series like House of Cards or The West Wing, imbued with an mix of colorful personalities and DC insider process. I enjoyed Kings, but was not left with many new insights about our flawed political process, tightly linked to corporate America. It did reinforce my stereotype that the main characteristic of a successful politician is one part narcissism, one part public service, and one half part intelligence and education.
Written by Sarah Burgess
Directed by Thomas Kail
Starring Eisa Davis, Zach Grenier, and Gillian Jacobs
New York Public Theater
March 22, 2018
Kings is the sort of play that seems to exemplify the NY Public Theater. It is well-crafted, lefty political, and plays as somewhat of a tonic to liberal New Yorkers dismayed by the current environment. Playwright Sarah Burgess is known for her 2016 play Dry Powder which skewered the world of equity traders (or not-so-equity traders). Kings does the same for Washington D.C. lobbying. It was an interesting 100 minutes, but failed to cover much new ground in the familiar Washington-insider format.
The play centers around Rep. Sydney Millsap (a convincing Eisa Davis), a newly elected congressman from Dallas, and the first woman and person of color to serve from her district. She comes with many ideals, but quickly sees that much of her time will be not be devoted to effecting change, but instead to getting re-elected in less than two years. Since fundraising is required for that, lobbyists become a steady environmental hazard, despite her reluctance to engage with them. She is pressured to raise money for her party as well, and since new rules dictate that she cannot do this in her office, she either goes to a cramped call center or does it from her chilly car. She is pressured by her party’s influential senator John McDowell (played to the prototypic wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing DC hilt by Zach Grenier) to toe the party line and not vote her conscience in supporting a fiscal reform bill designed to tax equity traders on their income, thus denying them the loophole of “capital gains”. When she supports the bill nonetheless, her party runs a true believer against her in the primary. Here the play takes an unlikely turn, and she opts out of running for congress but instead challenges Senator McDowell for his Texas seat. That this neophyte without independent wealth would be competitive in a Texas senate primary against the party’s leader and possible presidential candidate strains credulity, but makes for a good, rather old-fashioned story of little guy trying to make good. Superimposed on this story are the efforts of two lobbyists, one for medical associations, the other for financial firms, who interact with the two politicians in ways simultaneously unctuous, seductive, and informed. The four characters combine in different pairings to give a survey of current politician-lobbyist sociology in Washington.
Ms. Burgess writes crisply and with good forward motion, matched by efficient direction by Thomas Kail. The set is sparse, mostly set with a series of tables. There is an amusing, if odd, appearance of Chili’s sizzling fajitas which imbued the small theater with pseudo-Tex-Mex aromas for a bit. The play was entertaining, but rather in the way of a good TV series like House of Cards or The West Wing, imbued with an mix of colorful personalities and DC insider process. I enjoyed Kings, but was not left with many new insights about our flawed political process, tightly linked to corporate America. It did reinforce my stereotype that the main characteristic of a successful politician is one part narcissism, one part public service, and one half part intelligence and education.
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