Things being as they are in the political world, the general electorate—those who follow the news of the day, both real and not necessarily fit to print—has been gradually enlightened upon just what goes on between lobbyists and the lobbied. This harsh battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, take your pick, is vigorously brought to the stage of the Public in Sarah Burgess’ new play, Kings.
Burgess (along with director Thomas Kail, he of Hamilton) did something of the sort in Dry Powder, which brought Claire Danes to the stage of the Public back in 2016. That time Burgess was focusing her magnifier on corporate raiders and leveraged buyouts, in fast-paced, fascinating manner. This time Burgess dissects modern-day politics, and it makes for a brisk tale.
Sydney Millsap (Eisa Davis) is a recently elected congresswoman from North Dallas, a Gold Star widow and—as is continuously and pointedly remarked by everyone else—“the first woman and the first person of color ever to represent your district.” John McDowell (Zach Grenier) is the canny senior senator from Texas, with a fast-track to the presidency. It appears so, anyway, as the action begins to unfold at a “make-your-own-’smore” fundraiser at the Four Seasons in Vail. Hanging around—and literally eavesdropping behind pillars—are Kate (Gillian Jacobs) and Lauren (Aya Cash), a pair of thirtysomething lobbyists and friendly competitors. While unassuming in manner, these two turn out to have the power—through the financial clout of their clients—to topple kings.
Crusading young principled politician vs. powerful political machine is not a new dramatic concept, exactly, not since Jimmy Stewart stormed the citadels in Frank Capra’s 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. (Insidious lobbyists were attacked even further back, in Booth Tarkington’s 1905 story collection In the Arena—the power of which earned the author an instant invitation to the Oval Office by Teddy Roosevelt.)
Those olden lobbyist exposés were relatively polite and respectful, though. Burgess makes it clear just how facelessly ruthless today’s system has become, in this case battling over the carried interest loophole. The author lays it out with crystal clarity, making the not-so-fictional affair even more disconcerting by placing the malevolent power in the hands of low-level, deceptively-innocent sharks.
Director Kail has assembled a skillful cast of four. Davis, who was so very effective as the mother in the Public’s Passing Strange, provides the focal point here: Her Sydney is smart, uncompromising, and fully aware of the games she plays and the corresponding risks. Grenier is his slimily Machiavellian self as the senator. (That is, not so much his “self” but the persona he has created in numerous stage and screen performances, including his villainous television turn on The Good Wife.) Jacobs and Cash are equally strong as the young and eager—and, as it turns out, lethal—lobbyists.
Kail also provides an excellent, fast-paced staging, with the set (by Anna Louizos) sitting between two raked banks of seating, the action effectively played to both ends of the house. Also due praise are lighting designer Jason Lyons and composer/sound designer Lindsay Jones, both of whom did similarly strong work for Kail on Dry Powder.
As Kings winds down, so does the strength of the denouement; the final moments are not quite up to what came before, and could profit from some authorial tinkering. But Burgess has given the Public, and the audience, a second ripped-from- the headlines drama.
Kings opened February 20 at the Public Theater and runs through April 1, 2018. Information and tickets: publictheater.org.
