Palm Beach Dramaworks Unveils a Stark Portrait of Parental Desperation

 

Dangerous Instruments by Gina Montet receives its world premiere at Palm Beach Dramaworks in a searing, emotionally charged production. Told through a series of vignettes spanning a decade, the play traces the downward spiral of Laura, a single mother desperate to secure appropriate educational and emotional support for her intellectually gifted but emotionally challenged son, Daniel. It’s a damning portrait of an educational system ill-equipped—and increasingly underfunded—to meet complex, individualized needs.

What could have become a piece of overt social commentary à la Dickens is instead elevated to compelling drama under the sensitive direction of Margaret Ledford. At its center is a stunning performance by Savannah Faye as Laura. Faye captures the vulnerability and ferocity of a mother fighting a system that insists on blaming her rather than helping her child. Her performance anchors the play with authenticity and emotional depth.

 

Savannah Faye by Curtis Brown Photography

Montet’s play was one of five selected for the 2023 Perlberg Festival of New Plays. Of the piece, the playwright says: “Several of the characters blame Daniel’s problems on Laura, which I think is representative of our culture in general. That’s the default setting: blame the parent. I’m trying to tell the other side of the story—to say, ‘What if the parent did everything she could, and it wasn’t enough?’”

The production resonated all the more for me after recently viewing the 2024 West End revival of Next to Normal, a rock musical that also examines how systems fail those with complex needs. Like Next to Normal, Dangerous Instruments critiques one-size-fits-all solutions that ignore the nuances of individual cases. Both works highlight the human cost of a society that refuses to prioritize education and mental health. There are no happy endings here—and that’s precisely the point.

Faye’s performance is especially noteworthy as this marks not only her PBD debut but also her professional acting debut. Her raw, deeply human portrayal builds to a heartbreaking crescendo when she pleads, “Help us. Please? He’s still my baby… he’s my baby… my baby.” It’s unforgettable.

 

Matt Stabile and Savannah Faye by Curtis Brown Photography

Also making their PBD debuts are Matt Stabile as Paul—Laura’s one sympathetic counterpart, despite his professional obligations—as well as Jessica Farr and Maha McCain, who nimbly play multiple roles. PBD veteran Bruce Linser is a standout in dual roles as an emotionally detached principal and a quietly empathetic police officer.

The design team powerfully supports the production’s themes. Samantha Pollak’s sterile, institutionalized cinderblock set becomes a visual metaphor for Laura’s imprisonment within an uncaring system. (Pollak herself is a Dreyfoos School of the Arts alum, making her Florida design debut.) 

 

Roger Arnold’s sound design makes use of both Sesame Street-esque tunes and a haunting recurring theme of “Frère Jacques,” subtly asking: “Are you sleeping?”—a pointed critique of societal apathy.

Brian O’Keefe’s costumes trace Laura’s decline through poignant wardrobe changes, mirroring her dwindling resources and psychological state. Lighting by Dylan B. Carter and video design by Adam J. Thompson add dimension to the narrative, particularly through shadows of children and faux news-style interviews with the play's educational professionals, each justifying their actions. Director Margaret Ledford uses these video segments to chilling effect: everyone was “just doing their job.” So, who’s accountable?

Dangerous Instruments is a serious, sometimes devastating work.  It hits hard because it feels all too real. Yet, Paul, with a new red folder in hand, closes the show with a glimmer of hope.  We see a silhouette of a young child arriving for school suggesting the possibility of change.  But is hope enough?

 

Party Like There’s No Tomorrow – There Might Not Be

 

Dubai Token2049

The May 3 Wall Street Journal describes a bacchanalian bash—unimaginably over-the-top—in “What Happened in Two Days at a Very Wild Crypto Party. Arrests from just a year ago are forgotten. Executives ride zip lines, champagne flows, and deals are struck in Dubai.”

After 100 days, Trump’s presidency is essentially a revenge tour aimed at wrecking the institutions we’ve relied on since World War II. Instead of stability, we have chaos—fueled not by coherent strategy, but by his seemingly impulsive, seat-of-the-pants decisions. It may take generations—if we have that time—to restore public and global confidence in American governance. Behind the chaos stand crafty, avaricious power-seekers, armed with the Project 2025 playbook.

They’ve ravaged the judicial and educational systems, shifted our culture from tolerance to intolerance, and turned Congress and an unqualified Cabinet into obsequious followers. Our international commitments—on trade, the environment, and the defense of democratic allies—have been gutted. We have, in many respects, become the rogue state we once vowed to oppose.

In this sense, Trump’s second presidency represents the most consequential seismic shift in American governance since FDR. But this didn’t happen to us—it happened through us. We hastened it, abetted by a performative “woke” culture that quickly gave way to a reactionary cowboy ethos, supercharged by platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and X that allow anyone to spin their own version of reality, unmoored from fact.

If that were the end of it, we might breathe easier. But the Wall Street Journal article suggests the story only deepens. Beyond the partying at “Token2049,” “the biggest names in crypto and 15,000 of their biggest fans marked a new era of freedom.” Ah yes—“let freedom ring.” But freedom for whom? This is the kind of deregulated “freedom” that enriches the few—like the Trump family—at the expense of everyone else. Quite convenient, when the foxes write the rules of the henhouse.

One marquee attraction: Eric Trump, alongside Zach Witkoff—son of Trump’s Middle East envoy—promoting their company, World Liberty, and its so-called stablecoin, “USD1,” a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency. I don’t claim to understand the technical aspects, so I turn to Wired:

The model is simple: World Liberty Financial receives US dollars in exchange for coins that customers can trade freely in the crypto market. It keeps some of those dollars in cash and cash equivalents and invests the rest in US government bonds—also called Treasuries—which yield interest. The profits of stablecoin issuers depend partly on the going interest rate—right now, short-term Treasuries yield a little over 4 percent—but otherwise scale in a linear fashion with supply. The larger the amount of a stablecoin in circulation, the heftier the underlying reserve of assets from which the issuer can generate income.

How convenient. We’re talking about U.S. government securities—the very instruments that underpin our bloated national debt. About 30% of Treasuries are held by foreign governments or by institutions. The Federal Reserve holds nearly as much. Among other roles, it buys Treasuries to help finance government operations.

And then this torpedo from the Wall Street Journal article: “To whoops and applause, [Eric] Trump said nothing would give him more joy than to see crypto help kill off the big banks that cut ties with his family.”  [emphasis mine]

There it is: the final destination on the Don Corleone Trump revenge tour. About seventy banks were involved in his near personal bankruptcy as well as the bankruptcy of six of his hotel and casino businesses in the 1990s, including Citibank and Chase. These same large banks serve as primary dealers in Treasury auctions. If crypto eclipses traditional banking, the global role of the dollar as a reserve currency is jeopardized. The financial regulatory rules for crypto are being written by those who have most to gain by their easing. 

When the banks have to crawl to Dear Leader, it’s the final nail in the coffin of what was once a flawed but functioning republic.

This article from the March 7 New York Times shows this has been developing right in front of our eyes, as have all his transgressions.  Note the symbolism of the staging: