Enterprise

<p>   “Run GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS through a Monty Python spin cycle and you might get Brian Parks’s kinetic farce ENTERPRISE an absurdist express train of comic corporate-speak…<br />   Four ambitious businessmen in a skyscraper—the bespectacled Weaver the fresh-faced Sanders the somewhat dim Owens and the experienced Landry—entertain big dreams of impressing the unseen chairman of their imperiled company with a proposal that will send profit margins into the stratosphere.<br />   But over a night the men spend collaborating then pairing off into two rival factions their hopes rise and fall in a stream of bluster invective and recriminations.<br />   Their exchanges arrive in a succession of 45 rapid-fire blackouts many introduced with pings and other audio snippets that suggest say a text alert or a news-radio bulletin or an office copier. Among the many concerns preoccupying these fatuous climbers are the suspiciousness of uncentered mimeographs; the “smell” of diminishing value; the Depression-era allure of jumping out a window; and the perceived vulnerability of office toilet stalls.<br />   Conspicuously absent from the discussions are mentions of home family or women—as spouses relatives or colleagues. (“Astrology is astronomy for girls” says Landry dismissively.) No surprise there: These men live only to compete with and impress one another (and their boss). No one else has any place in their displays of would-be brainpower and self-consuming testosterone.<br />   …The true star is Mr Parks’s dialogue: If a joke doesn’t hit its mark (and some are simple non sequiturs) another one lands before you have time to notice.<br />   Mr Parks a former theater editor at The Village Voice and an ex-chairm an of the Obie Awards is noted for the fast pace of his work. ENTERPRISE comes off a 2017 run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where it won a Scotsman Fringe First Award. The playwright’s hapless executives may not qualify for a raise but his ENTERPRISE merits a promotion.”<br />Andy Webster The New York Times</p>