"Imagining Madoff" is the current offering from The New Jewish Theatre. In retrospect, the first word of the title is probably more important than the second. We all remember Bernie Madoff, the Ponzi schemer who wounded a long list of prestigious individuals and institutions with his deceit. Deb Margolin's play appears to be almost completely disconnected from reality.
Bobby Miller is Madoff, Jerry Vogel is – cognitive dissonance alert – an extremely prosperous poet (his balance sheet explained by how much money he's made from translating), and Julie Layton an unnamed secretary. The play begins with a schlubby, gentle-sounding sort of guy trying to remember the punch line to a joke. This is Madoff? Yes, it is, as it turns out.
The script cuts among three scenes, Madoff musing to himself, perhaps from prison, Madoff and the poet in dialogue at the poet's home as the poet tries to woo Madoff into taking him on as a client, and Layton who might, from the set, be doing a news conference but might be being interviewed by police or giving a deposition. There's a voice-over, uncredited, that seems to use lines from the Midrash. But nearly all the dialogue in the 95-minute work seems to drag and much of it feels very unconnected.
Director Lee Ann Mathews' choice to portray Madoff as an unprepossessing man seems an odd one. Madoff, in his photographs, was always immaculately and expensively dressed, but here appears in an ill-fitting and shapeless suit, albeit with an expensive tie. At times, it's difficult to understand Miller's lines. Whether it's because he's mumbling or is facing the other half of the audience is hard to discern, but there's also talking over, whether from the Great Voice or Vogel.
The poet was originally to have been Elie Wiesel, author and concentration camp survivor who had invested with Madoff and lost huge amounts of money, but when the author sent him a copy of the script, he called it "obscene" and threatened legal action. Vogel's portrayal is soft, almost fuzzy, and while he is trying to woo Madoff, as Madoff apparently liked his would-be clients to do, he's never in doubt about who he is and where he stands. Layton's secretary is the most clearly drawn of the three, an onlooker to the scene of the crimes, stunned by what she didn't know she was a minute part of.
The primary culprit in the unfocused play is the script, no question about that. But one's left feeling that it could have been tightened up had that been the choice.
Imagining Madoff
through February 8
The New Jewish Theatre
Wool Studio Theater
2 Millstone Campus Drive
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Thanks very much for your kind attention to the Imagining Madoff play. I just wanted to note that, as for the absurdity of an “extremely prosperous poet,” in this fictional play, the poet character says that he wants Madoff to “manage me personally, my wife’s inheritance.” That is his description of where his money comes from. As a writer, I would never imply that writing poetry or translating books would make a person rich!
Any thinker’s opinions about this or any play I write are an honor and are most welcome; I always do feel the need to make factual corrections.