CQ/CX dramatizes the scandal that hit The New York
Times in 2003, wherein it was
discovered that a young, black reporter had been plagiarizing and fabricating
dozens upon dozens of stories. Playwright Gabe (Extinction) McKinley delivers the
story tersely, in an almost reportorial way, suggesting a just-the-facts-ma'am
style. The characterizations are strong and the atmosphere authentic, which
keeps it from seeming bloodless and allows it to stay compelling. David
Leveaux keeps the playing style
lean and to the point, assisted in no small way by a cast that locks into the
documentary feel—in particular, the older actors as the seasoned, matured
newspaper veterans with newsprint for blood (Larry Bryggman, Tim Hopper, Peter Jay Fernandez,
David Pittu and Arliss
Howard). If the younger aren’t
quite so shaved-to-the-essence, they’re not supposed to be; they are after all
the still-dreaming, still-ambitious hopefuls (Sheila Tapia, Steve Rosen and—at the heart of it all—Kobi
Libii).
CQ/CX is, however, a play that some will find
unsatisfying because of what seems the enigma at the center, the young reporter
whose motives are never sufficiently explicated. And in truth, they can't be,
in any rational context; his is the pathology of clinical personality disorder;
its rationalization is a product of impulse, damaged self-image and distorted
perspective. There's no making sense out of crazy. But because such terminology
or analysis is not in CQ/CX's
meticulously reportorial purview, the pathology is only presented sans comment, interpretation, reveal or label; all
that's unequivocal is the personal and journalistic damage left in its wake.
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