A Sequel to the Classic Play Concludes That Nothing Has Changed

Inspired by the Taxi Drivers’ Strike of 1934, the original Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odetswas an indictment of the social ills and travesties of the time, and a call for radical reform. 

But as the Producers point out in the Program, “This is Not That Play.”

Still Waiting for Lefty, stagedat the elegant Teatro Latea on the Lower East Side,returns to survey the state of affairs over a century later. The play finds that Pete Townshend and the Who were correct in their own conclusion: Meet the New Boss, Same as The Old Boss.

The production begins with the site of over a dozen union members storming the stage with picket signs, angry and defiant. A strike is looming that will either help the workers, hurt them, or change nothing at all. They wear the caps famously associated with the cabbies of the Great Depression, but we soon learn that the setting is not 1934 or even 2024; it’s a not-too distant future, and the outlook is decidedly grim. 

Vignettes involving the employees of the corporation in question, the ominous New World Tech, play out one-by-one as they wait with trepidation for the strike announcement. Their individual stories eventually coalesce Seinfeld-style, but in a far from lighthearted manner. New York Tech is riding on their backs, and any “horse” that refuses to gallop is shot on the spot.

-Lamar (Ron Brice) is an older man who has gotten his life back together after many personal trials but is suddenly dismissed from his job because he won’t betray the union. This sends him hurtling back into despair, and to a fateful meeting at the edge of a subway platform later in the play. His monologue as he eulogizes the happy future cruelly torn away from him will haunt anyone who witnesses it for a long time to come. 

-Mr. Hopkins (Greg Seel) is the intimidating whiskey-sipping corporate lead. He entices Tech expert Miller (Brian Welton Cook) with a raise, but only if he will act as a “rat” for management, monitoring a friend and colleague who is union friendly. Miller makes a fateful decision and then returns in a sequence that is somehow both hilarious and harrowing, as he goes to a department store to buy ridiculous-looking and absurdly expensive new clothes for his next career endeavor, only to run into a suicide attempt by one of the store’s employees, Eva (Maria Christina Perry).  

 -Julio (Federico Mallet) and his sister Mariam (Majo Bermudez) argue in the face of their sick mother’s impending (and likely expensive) death, and her boyfriend’s inability to financially contribute to the family. “You’ve got to be hard as a rock or just go under,” says Julio, speaking to not only Mariam but to everyone who is struggling. “You don’t have to be strong all the time,’ she protests, addressing the same audience. 

-Mariam’s boyfriend arrives brandishing imaginary flowers because he can’t afford the real ones, and she movingly plays along by pretending they got squished while the couple hugged and pricking herself on an imaginary thorn. 

-Dr. Anderson (Alexander Morrison), a therapist working at a hospital wing that suspiciously bears the same last name as him, loses all control of a group counseling session to Kayla (Hannah Williams), a patient with no filter and nothing left to lose.

-A man (Luke Hodgson) brings a sex worker (Kamailyah Floyd) to his apartment, and the shocking reveal of both their true identities brings the overall story to an intense and dramatic climax. 

Woven into the narrative on a screen behind the actors are all-too-familiar hallmarks of life in the 21^st century: A PowerPoint presentation (promising a corporate version of the MCU) and later an intrusive product placement ad by a Social Media Influencer. They are a potent source of comedy while being an all-too-familiar reminder of the clinical callousness of current culture.

The final scenes of the play are punctuated by a violence that can only be described as inevitable in the wake of the desperation that has played out over the last few hours. The sequences are staged deftly with Fight Choreography by Gabriel Rosario with assistance by Tristan Mesmer. But there’s room for dance amidst the darkness, and this is beautifully guided by Choreographer Silvana Gonzalez. (And New World Tech Mascot Ricky the Rat fittingly gets to join in on the dance party.) 

Still Waiting for Lefty is, as promised in the Program, an understandably uncomfortable watch, but also an essential and rewarding experience, brought to life by an astonishing 22-person cast. It’s a necessary reminder of the human cost of corporate greed masquerading as cultural and technological advancement. It lays to waste the vicious lie of employees as “family”, reminding us that these siblings can be dismissed and replaced at the slightest sign of individuality or disloyalty.  It is a call to arms for our times, a story of poignant sadness and tragedy, but shimmering with a glimmer of hope. 

Still Waiting for Lefty is written and directed by Luke Bond.