A complex story takes fascinating shape in Northampton Community College Theatre Departments well done "Junk: The Golden Age of Debt."
The production, done in five live-streamed performances filmed in the colleges Lipkin Theatre, featured all the actors wearing clear face shields, which quickly became almost unnoticeable.
Director Bill Mutimer did an admirable job keeping the many layered story easy to follow.The story takes place in 1985 in the world of financing and junk bonds and is based upon real-life financiers like Michael Milken.Robert Merkin is the genius junk bonds trader who has made millions and landed on the cover of Time magazine and as the show starts is working on a hostile takeover of a family-owned steel company.Merkin, as played by Joe Dionne is a fast talking and charismatic con man, who has convinced himself what he does is moral because debt drives the economy.
He is assisted by his lawyer Raul Rivera, played by Ricky Negron as equally fast-talking and ruthless as Merkin.Brandon Costanzos Izzy Peterman is the somewhat bumbling and hesitant, but intensely ambitious businessman enlisted by Merkin and Rivera to buy out the steel company with over-leveraged funds.Thomas Iverson, the third generation owner of the steel company and nominal good guy of the story, is played dourly by Colton Boyd, who makes Iverson gritty and determined as he does whatever necessary to save the jobs at the steel mill all while standing in the substantial shadow of his father.Framing the story is writer Judy Chen, played as coolly calculating by Christina Concilio. Although she is dispassionately writing about junk bonds trading, she proves herself just as susceptible to siren call of wealth as the others.Merkins many sleazy cohorts include trader Boris Pronsky portrayed with unrestrained anger by Steven Fuquay; Devon Atkins, played as a squirrely sad sack by Max Wetherhold and Mark OHare, a rude, cocky smart-aleck as played by Maximilian Hostage.Merkins wife Amy is played with cold-eyed pragmatism by Carmen Soto, who nurses her newborn while she pores over Iverson Steel financial records looking for weakness to exploit.Jim Long is swaggering and self-assured as Leo Tresler, a private equity manager who has an ax to grind with Merkin and so tries to help Iverson hold off the takeover.When a politician, played slickly by Ryan Patrick Allen, decides taking down the corporate raiders would be good for his career, wire-tappings ultimately lead determined attorney (Khadafy Ramirez) to bring down the traders house of cards.The three level set works well to portray the various offices and boardrooms where all the financial decisions are made.Mutimer makes good use of sound effects in the recording, as well as using 1980s era music between scene, in particular Billy Joels "Allentown."While little ends well in this intriguing look at the financial world of the mid 1980s, it leaves the viewer with the moral that while some things have changed, many havent.