Livelihood

Lavender Magazine
On The Townsend
By John Townsend
Livelihood
Through July 29th
Old Arizona
2821 Nicollet Ave., Mpls
(612) 871-0500

The devil may not wear Prada in the savage comedy Livelihood, but perhaps he wants to, and just can't admit it. Playwright Aaron Christopher's scathing speculation on toxic corporate machismo involves an interview between a character simply named The Interviewer and Jason, a desperate yuppie job applicant.

It's a dynamically outlandish vision of dominance and submission between seemingly heteronormative men living out primal gender roles as hunter and prey in a contemporary context. The Interviewer demands to be called Yahweh. He inquires about Jason's urine, his sister, and his bra size. (Jason is not transgender.) Yet, the play is written not with a homophobic perspective, but instead with keen insight about how corporate identity neurotically suppresses one's true nature.

Matthew Greseth, as The Interviewer and also as director of this bedazzling show takes a gutsy approach. He hones in on homoerotic impulses that unconsciously seep from the white-collar exteriors of the characters. In performance, The Interviewer intermittently threatens Jason (Nate Hessburg) by inappropriate massage groping him, referring to him in feminized terms, and contriving to get him to lie (sacrificially) flat on his desk. Hessburg is perfectly disturbing in his personification of the corporate American male who, against his better judgment, still willingly follows a madman in misguided hopes of accruing profit or prestige. When The Interviewer actually seems to think they've just missed the Rapture of the Revelation, we get a terrifying glimpse of how corporate tyranny and evangelical fanaticism can close ranks in wicked mutual interest.

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