Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Enterprise

Enterprise

Parks, Brian

Paperback

Plays

ISBN10: 0881457973
ISBN13: 9780881457971
Publisher: Broadway Play Publishing
Published: Sep 24 2018
Pages: 86
Weight: 0.24
Height: 0.18 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

Run GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS through a Monty Python spin cycle and you might get Brian Parks's kinetic farce ENTERPRISE, an absurdist express train of comic corporate-speak...
Four ambitious businessmen in a skyscraper--the bespectacled Weaver, the fresh-faced Sanders, the somewhat dim Owens and the experienced Landry--entertain big dreams of impressing the unseen chairman of their imperiled company with a proposal that will send profit margins into the stratosphere.
But over a night the men spend collaborating, then pairing off into two rival factions, their hopes rise and fall in a stream of bluster, invective and recriminations.
Their exchanges arrive in a succession of 45 rapid-fire blackouts, many introduced with pings and other audio snippets that suggest, say, a text alert, or a news-radio bulletin, or an office copier. Among the many concerns preoccupying these fatuous climbers are the suspiciousness of uncentered mimeographs; the smell of diminishing value; the Depression-era allure of jumping out a window; and the perceived vulnerability of office toilet stalls.
Conspicuously absent from the discussions are mentions of home, family or women--as spouses, relatives or colleagues. (Astrology is astronomy for girls, says Landry dismissively.) No surprise there: These men live only to compete with and impress one another (and their boss). No one else has any place in their displays of would-be brainpower and self-consuming testosterone.
...The true star is Mr Parks's dialogue: If a joke doesn't hit its mark (and some are simple non sequiturs), another one lands before you have time to notice.
Mr Parks, a former theater editor at The Village Voice and an ex-chairm an of the Obie Awards, is noted for the fast pace of his work. ENTERPRISE comes off a 2017 run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Scotsman Fringe First Award. The playwright's hapless executives may not qualify for a raise, but his ENTERPRISE merits a promotion.
Andy Webster, The New York Times

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