Must meritocracy be sacrificed at the altar of Diversity-Equity-Inclusion initiatives (DEI) and what is the cost to society when it becomes cancel culture? That is at the heart of this gripping and disturbing World Premiere of Christopher Demos-Brown’s The Cancellation of Lauren Fein at Palm Beach Dramaworks. His play pays homage to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible which, although about the Salem Witch trials, is an allegory steeped in McCarthyism and the hysteria over communism. As Mark Twain remarked, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Higher education’s commitment to DEI is giving rise to a kind of vigilante justice with unintended consequences. It is the next rhyming verse in history, and the playwright and PBD’s production powerfully capture the repercussions.
A liberal university’s “Anonymous Reporting System” (and therefore no accountability, a kind of Orwellian big brother watching you) along with vociferous DEI proponents, aided and abetted by the ubiquity of social media, take aim at a lesbian couple, both college professors, Lauren Fein and her wife, Paola Moreno, impacting not only their lives, but that of Dylan, their 16-year-old African American foster son. Like a stone thrown in a pond, the ripple effects wash far beyond this one story. Much of Demos-Brown’s play is a moving suspense-filled court-room style drama in Academia, with Kafkaesque twists and turns, building to a startling conclusion and a highly effective double ending with a truly tragic twist of the knife, the imagined alternative reality in a world of truth and scientific reasoning. It is unforgettable.
The play is an invective of modern academic woke life. Nothing escapes the playwright’s scathing eye, as his drama examines a liberal university’s killing of the goose and, along with it, the golden egg of truth and academic freedom. Universities’ core values of intellectual inquiry and research seem to be taking a back seat to values that work against their very mission. The play is exciting, suspenseful, painful, making you want to shake your fist at good intentions gone unhinged.
Demos-Brown pushes the play to the borders of metadrama. Paola’s academic specialty is the playwright’s spiritual mentor, Arthur Miller, and her colleague, Evan’s, is David Mamet. The latter playwright wrote Oleanna to which this play finds some commonality, although Mamet’s play was for an earlier time focusing “merely” on sexual harassment. DEI moves well beyond yesterday’s critical-race-theory outrage and its roots in Title IX. One only has to consider the recent crisis at Harvard University which morphed into questions concerning the prevalence of anti-Semitism.
Yet, the playwright lands his punches with great pathos and humor, the cost to the Fein- Moreno household being just the microcosm to that of society and academic life. His play is so contemporary, it actually anticipated developments as it was being written even the innuendo of there being positive values to being a slave, shades of Florida’s Governor’s pronouncement. It is an example of life imitating art, and it is written meticulously to capture the way people really speak and react to one another in love and under unimaginable stress.
Niki Fridh plays Professor Lauren Fein the brilliant, indefatigable genetic biologist, on a fast track for the Nobel Prize. Yet, she is the good academic soldier, agreeing to teach a basic biology course (laughingly nicknamed “Holes and Poles”). Fridh nails her character’s breezy open manner and her brilliance, neither of which count for much as the cancel-culture hammer comes down on her. She captures both the tragic side of her fallen character, a victim of her own hubris, and yet delivers lots of the humor in the play, but with a contemptuousness so fitting the nightmare that evolves. As the play is a tragedy, the seeds are sown in her personality, with off ramps from the crisis readily available, but knowing that she is not guilty she refuses to avail herself of those reputation-saving alternatives.
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| Diana Garle and Niki Fridh Photo by Alicia Donelan |
Diana Garle is Paola Moreno, Lauren’s wife, a professor of theatre and film studies who freely admits that her status as Fein’s wife and being queer and Latina didn’t hurt her future for advancement in their liberal university. It is a co-leading role, a key one as she breaks the fourth wall, keeping the audience apprised of the back-story. Garle slips in and out of being a truth teller to the audience and a character in the play with ease. She has the most impactful role in the play, a bravura performance by an actor who is new to Palm Beach Dramaworks. Paola lives with the consequences of Lauren’s tragedy and Garle’s collapsing resignation at the end is heartbreaking.
Malcolm Callender (PBD debut) is very effective as Dylan Fein-Moreno, the troubled 16 year old foster child confused by the world, his place in it, and such is easily manipulated by the nightmarish circumstances.
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| Odera Adimorah and Malcolm Callender Photo by Alicia Donelan |
Odera Adimorah (PBD debut) is the kindly Professor Chikezie Nweze “Chi”, Lauren’s Nigerian research partner with a comforting basso profundo voice. In a way he’s also a soul father to Dylan, trying to help him make sense of the world. His unease about homosexuality is overshadowed by his dedication to Lauren as he is convinced that her research on sickle-cell anemia will save untold lives in Africa.
Lindsey Corey plays the prosecuting attorney, Melanie Jones, with a fervency befitting her nickname “’Melanin’ Jones” who Paola describes as “the DEI movement’s Che Guevara.” Being a “loser” is not in her character’s DNA and Corey goes on a fresh attack with every push back. She is also Lauren’s academic adversary as Jones’ field is Gender Studies for which Lauren has contempt as being a phony made-up major, one which siphons off needed funds for her research, a field which can actually publish papers “about how penises cause climate change.”
Karen Stephens, a veteran of many PBD plays Dean of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Marilyn Whitney, heretofore a friend of Lauren’s. Stephens projects her character’s pain at having to move from friendship to becoming almost a “tag team” with Jones. She knows that her new and rarified position of being appointed Dean depends on her appearing to disapprove of Fein’s actions and explanations (“as a woman of color, I’m really under the microscope here”). Lauren feels betrayed by her once-upon-a-time friend.
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| Lindsey Corey, Diana Garle, Niki Fridh, Barbara Sloan and Karen Stephens Photo by Alicia Donelan |
Barbara Sloan makes a mighty effort to stay impartial as Judge Lorraine Miller, and keep order at one point saying “we are academics with PhD’s” (amusingly implying that should ensure decorum in the proceedings). She marks her territory to Lauren’s defender’s question about her law experience with the acerbic reply “I’d prefer ‘Judge Miller’ in these proceedings. And, yes – I have a law degree from Duke.” She also delivers one of the more profound truths attached to the proceedings, the “rules of civil law do not apply here.” Precisely the problem!
Stephen Trovillion plays the voice of reason in the role of Professor “Buddy” McGovern, which I suspect is a stand in for the views of the playwright, who also is a practicing attorney. He is the only straight white male in the play, and amusingly is a progressive from the old south, complete with a southern drawl which adds to the abundant humor of the play. Trovillion projects his character’s bewilderment of the proceeding’s disregard for the rules of law to the point that Judge Miller nearly removes him from the kangaroo court.
PBD veteran actor Bruce Linser is perfect as Evan Reynolds, a white, gay film / theatre scholar who has probably been passed over for tenure because of those facts. He is best friends with Paola and knows the dangers to Lauren saying to Paola “I stopped teaching a long time ago. I just lecture now directly from my pre-vetted notes. But I know Lauren has standards.” His feelings of betrayal by Paola are palpable. He is also the ominous voice of Judge Howard in a real court at the play’s sad, disturbing conclusion
Kaelyn Ambert-Gonzalez (PBD debut), plays Zoe, a PhD graduate student who once studied under Lauren, had an affair with her, and enacts an incident as a drunk at a party, the final nail in the case against Lauren Fein.
Margaret M. Ledford directs this world premiere production with pace and crispness. She elevates the verbal sparring of the proceedings, even when they are overlapping. The director and the Palm Beach Dramaworks team have transported the play to a level of hyperrealism with the video design seamlessly integrated into the performance. Clearly, she commands the respect of the actors and flawlessly choreographs the action as intended by the playwright, with the help of Nicole Perry (PBD debut), the intimacy choreographer for a number of such scenes.
Scenic design is by Anne Mundell who has created an area supporting the other technical designers. The worn pragmatic benches and tables serve a multiplicity of purposes and could be the setting for Salem in 1692 or appropriately a stage for a modern day Greek chorus.
Video design is by Adam J. Thompson. The visual projection enhances the architecture of the set, identifying different locations and creates a canvas for the brilliant montage of social media at work. There we can sense the voyeurism of people stepping into private space. The play is cinematic and so are the visuals.
Costume design is by Brian O’Keefe, for real time, extended time, flash backs of each character with his/her own color pallets. They range from pant suits worn by the professionals, with Dean Whitney’s costume design having military connotations and Buddy McGovern amusingly dressed in attire resembling something Tom Wolfe would wear as the style of a Southern gentlemen.
Lighting design is by Kirk Bookman who in Act I has multiple lighting challenges for many different locations whereas Act II is mostly the courtroom with full lights up. At the denouement there is a ghostly white spot on Lauren and a life like spot on Paola. It is highly effective and moving
Sound design is by Roger Arnold with an emphasis on transitions between spaces.
What Paulo says about “Uncivil Rights,” a student’s play she advocated can be said about this play: “In my writing classes, I teach my students: ‘Dazzle, delight, and derange. Find the sacred cow and kill it.’ This kid...located the most tender spot in American political culture and probed it with merciless beauty. The play was everything art should be: Poetic. Painful. Hilarious.”
But the future is encapsulated by Buddy McGovern’s impassioned concluding argument: “Is this truly the goal of your so-called revolution? A post-modern world with ad hoc rules at every turn? A world where innuendo kills reputations and rumor ends careers? A world devoid of any semblance of due process? Where subjective slight trumps objective truth? Is that what you really want?”
The Cancellation of Lauren Fein is sure to enter the canon of important contemporary drama and it can be seen here, first, at Palm Beach Dramaworks.
