The
editor of a glossy pig farming industry magazine, Meena (Marin Hinkle) is not happy in her work. She enters a drug
trial conducted by a major pharmaceutical company, testing an anti-depressant
drug meant to enable workplace satisfaction. She doesn't fit within the easy
categorization of the questionnaire (among other complexities, she was once a
published prose poet) Her assigned physician Phil (Stephen Kunken) is a very strait-laced type, however—but
rather than try to contain, control or otherwise manage her idiosyncrasy, he
finds himself accommodating it more and more. Which brings him closer and
closer to violating the ethical protocols of the trial. And such is the premise
of RX by Kate Fodor, presented by Primary Stages at 59E59.
Under
the brisk direction of Ethan McSweeney, the play manages to maintain a delicate balance between cynical
social satire—the target of course being how Big Drugs seek to create
dependent customers, whether they truly need help or not—and sappy
romantic comedy; and the balance is achieved delightfully too, rather like a
cross-breeding of Paddy Chayefsky and Nora Ephron. It’s never quite predictable
and in the end, quite satisfying. Dare I say it: a prescription for mildly
thought-provoking fun. Rounding out the expertly comic cast are Michael
Bakkensen, Marylouise Burke, Paul Niebanck and Elizabeth Rich.
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