Like so many of Lonegran’s works, the art of making mundane activities, human frailty, and claustrophobic settings into grandiose melodramas is tantamount to the immersive quality of Lobby Hero. Much of this achieved through rapid-fire dialogue delivered with absolute aplomb by the gifted group of actors assembled for this production. As Jeff, Gabriel King shines as a consummate screw-up who cannot ever seem to cease talking or curb his enthusiasm for off-color and poorly-timed jokes. What should essentially be an utterly annoying, pathetically pushy White Man, is an endearingly funny and enjoyable (if not cringe-worthy in a relatable way) protagonist with King’s very-able and nimble-tongued portrayal.
Jessie-Wray Goodman, as the lone female presence on stage, does overtime to not only bring steely resilience to a character that is talked-over and marginalized by the male characters around her, but to transform a character that could easily be one-dimensional into a fantastically sympathetic and dynamically heartfelt woman. Additionally, both Rico Romalus Parker playing William, and Patrick Jordan (barebones’ founder and artistic director) playing Bill add respective parts humanity and despicableness, as two men dictated by their impulses and desires to radically different ends. The stage design of Lobby Hero is instrumental in the immersive success of the show. Though small in frame, the crew phenomenally orchestrates a set that is both plausibly a lobby of high-rise, and compactly and efficiently designed so as to totally ensconce the audience in the world of the play. There is never a semblance of artifice or performance in Lobby Hero, and the absorption of the audience throughout the piece is utterly irrefutable.
It is crucial that the performances and design qualities are as profoundly engaging and impressive as they are, as the subject matter of Lobby Hero can come across as somewhat distancing. Lonegran, while deft at exploring (and, at times, exploiting) the microcosmic on a macro level, has a propensity to craft characters (particularly cis-male characters) who can almost pull off the trick of transcending their deep, problematic tropes, but are ultimately completely immured by them. These tropes—namely, overbearingly entitled, misogynistic, destructive, pompously masochistic—are arguably important to have onstage. The Franks of the world, and the abuses and microaggressions they inflict, exist and should be shown for what they are; the stealthily problematic Jeff’s in our everyday should be examined, to some degree, so we may identify them and have a sort of commiserate experience with those who interact with them in their fictive realm. But the umbrage to be taken with Lonegran’s works is that, more often than not, the focus on these type of trope-laden characters (again, specifically men) seems to veer towards self-loathing revelry or fixation, rather than progress or analysis by way of theatrical examination. The gifted cast and crew successfully navigate their source material away from these pitfalls—as an audience member you find yourself engrossed in and enamored by the adroitness of the players on stage rather than problematic behavioral politics of the characters they portray. Lobby Hero is an intensely enjoyable and consistently riveting show to add to barebones’ wonderful portfolio.
Lobby Hero runs at the barebones black box in Braddock through October 20. Tickets and more information can be found here.
Eva Phillips is celebrating her third year in Pittsburgh, third year writing for PGH in the Round, and twenty-seventh year not getting murdered (shockingly, despite all odds). She relocated to the brittle Steel City from Virginia to pursue her Masters in Literary and Cultural Studies at CMU (with a concentration in film theory and film criticism, and intersections with feminism and gender), and has spent the past few years in Pittsburgh cultivating her writing career, developing her blog https://www.tuesgayswithmorrie69.net/, raising two show cats, and widening her perspectives on the ever-evolving spectrum of theatre. She only has one Les Miserables tattoo out of her 32 tattoos, and she finds that morally reprehensible.
Categories: Archived Reviews