THEATER

Rep's Windfall world premiere goes after greed

Jason Alexander (left) directs Windfall by Scooter Pietsch (right).
Jason Alexander (left) directs Windfall by Scooter Pietsch (right).

You suspect one of your co-workers had stolen $300 million from you.

What would you do?

Windfall

7 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday, Friday-June 26, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Sixth and Main streets. World premiere, comedy by Scooter Pietsch; directed by Jason Alexander; produced in partnership with John Yonover. For adult audiences (strong language). Preview: 7 p.m. today; director talk, 6:15 p.m. Opening night (Friday), post-show champagne reception and cast meet-and-greet in the lobby. Sunday: “Pay Your Age” Night. June 22: Sign Interpreter Night. June 25: Post-performance after-party.

Sponsor: Acxiom

Tickets: $40, $30; $20 students

(501) 378-0405

TheRep.org

Noon today: panel discussion with Alexander, Pietsch, Yonover and Rep Producing Artistic Director Bob Hupp, Clinton School of Public Service, 1200 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock. Free.

That's the question at the heart of Windfall by Scooter Pietsch. The world premiere production goes up this week at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, onstage through June 26.

Five co-workers (played by Cyrus Alexander, Lisa Ann Goldsmith, Nikki Coble, Kayla Nicole Wikes and Alvin Keith) at a small Columbus, Ohio, data processing business -- four of them best friends -- have been toiling despite low wages and verbal abuse and unreasonable demands for perfection from their maniacal and deceitful boss (Ray Wills).

They've survived through camaraderie and mutual support. But finally, driven to the brink, they put every last cent they have into playing the lottery, with a more than $300 million jackpot at stake. And in the second act, suspicion that one of them is holding the winning ticket but has been holding out on them brings out the absolute worst in them, sacrificing compassion and human decency under the possibly mistaken idea that money can buy happiness. "Best friends become best enemies," Wills says succinctly.

Pietsch puts it plainly: "If you thought somebody has stolen $300 million from you, you might get quite upset." He describes his very physical, very dark comedy as "a fun, action-packed whodunit," revolving around the pivotal poles of greed and despair, and in the second act devolving into "an action movie involving office tools used as weapons."

"The whole concept people have, the thing that moves them, is that money will make them happier," he explains.

(The Rep has been notifying patrons in advance about that onstage violence and some very adult language. "I don't see how all this can happen without a little salt. And some cayenne pepper as well," Pietsch says.)

Part of the attention Pietsch's play is attracting here and throughout the theatrical world is that its director is Jason Alexander, whose resume includes extensive acting credits on Broadway (Merrily We Roll Along, The Rink, Jerome Robbins' Broadway), in film (Pretty Woman, Shallow Hal, Coneheads). And a little TV show called Seinfeld.

"If you are in this situation, what would your response be? 'I wouldn't do that' -- or would you?" Alexander asks archly. "It's a very physical play in the second act -- as if Noises Off were performed by [Chicago avant-garde company] Steppenwolf."

The mystery element: Whether there is, in actuality, a winning lottery ticket, and if so, who has it. "That's the thing that drives the behavior in the second act," Alexander says. "Scooter makes it possible for anyone to have cheated."

Actor Bryan (Breaking Bad) Cranston, a mutual friend, brought Pietsch and Alexander together after getting involved with another Pietsch play that he wanted Alexander to direct. After a table reading of Windfall, Pietsch asked Alexander to share his thoughts, and that was that.

"This has been joyful, it's been fun -- it's never been done, so we're making all the discoveries," Alexander says. "The project is a puzzle; the fun is in putting the puzzle together, unpacking the back story, finding the right tone."

That has included designing the set with Rep resident scenic wizard Mike Nichols: "We don't want cubicles; we want something that projects that tone of despair, but is still somewhat interesting for an audience to look at for two hours."

And it has included his six actors finding absolutely new things in the script that the director and even the playwright haven't yet discovered.

"That's their job: to surprise," the director says. "They must do the text, but the actor's job is to find the subtext under the words that even the playwright didn't know was there. And we must make use of that discovery."

The script has undergone nearly daily changes during the two weeks of rehearsal prior to tech week -- "It's not from what I'm used to; it's a short process for a brand new piece," Alexander says -- as Pietsch moves dialogue to different places, assigns lines to different actors based on some of those discoveries and cuts dialogue that doesn't work. Alexander expects the show to continue to evolve throughout the run: "I'm sad that I can't come back for the last performance, to see how it has changed and morphed."

Pietsch, better known as a composer than a playwright, received a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Song for his work on 1996's All Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series. And he has also written incidental pre-show and interstitial music for Windfall.

"I get asked all the time whether this has a happy ending," he says. "I tell them it depends on personal philosophy." If winning the lottery equals happiness, perhaps.

And will getting this play on the boards equal happiness for the playwright?

"Nobody knows what's going to work, whether it'll be a hit or failure, until it gets on stage," he says philosophically.

Weekend on 06/09/2016

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