a wee bit of theatre

We went to a play last night at a small theatre venue located conveniently on 19th. It really is a perk to live so close to everything -parks, restos, theatres, etc. We just strolled down the street a few blocks after dinner and enjoyed a very entertaining production of The Mistakes Madeline Made. Written by young New Yorker, Elizabeth Merriwether, the absurdist play centers around 20-something Edna who works a mind-numbing job as one of a dozen or more assistants to an extremely wealthy, meticulously organized and completely insulated family. Edna lacks the mental capacity to successfully negotiate the superficial inanities of her job (magnified brilliantly my her high-strung and anal-retentive co-worker, Beth) with the awful realities of the war in the Middle-East -a war that has resulted in so many deaths (including her brother). As she struggles to escape the unsettling disconnect (of sanitized, rich, white, consumer America and the filth of war), she begins to sleep around with pretentious writer types and then (in a less predictable turn) develops a fear of bathing. Edna uses her own body odor as a powerful weapon to punish and repel those around her.
The play is a thoughtful commentary about the war in Iraq, America's role in it and the process of coming clean.