Tip (Charles Hsu), Emi (Kleo Mitrokostas), and Kaz (Vann Dukes), who work for a congressman on Capitol Hill, finally make it out of the office, in Nina Kissinger’s This Is Government.
It’s a minor theatrical annoyance, but one that does irk some critics: When your set displays a large wall clock, center stage, make sure it’s running. The wall clock in This Is Government, Nina Kissinger’s disappointing new comedy at 59E59, displays 4:55 in the 15-minute first scene and stays there, with the three denizens of Washington’s Cannon House Office Building moving the hands manually to tick off the subsequent scenes in a roughly seven-hour dramatic arc. It plays amateurishly, and so, unfortunately, does much of This Is Government.
In lockdown, Emi and Tip are desperate for snacks.
The press release describes it as “The West Wing meets Gen Z,” and that’s fair. On Daniel Allen’s unassuming set—desks, chairs, and staircase-like file cabinets, to reach that clock—Emi (Kleo Mitrokostas), Tip (Charles Hsu), and Kaz (Vann Dukes), two summer interns and their supervisor in a California congressman’s office on Capitol Hill, are fielding phone calls and shooting the breeze (they’d use a different word) when a bomb threat puts them in lockdown. A suspicious red Camry is parked outside—“if you knew you were going to make a bomb threat at the Capitol and your car was going to be on television, why on earth would you pick a Camry?” asks Tip, a representative sampling of Kissinger’s humor—and its driver is eventually revealed to be Stevie (Susan Lynskey), a justifiably aggrieved constituent who calls in to their office several times a day. A healthcare bill is on the floor, and their representative will cast the deciding vote. She wants a yes.
These three have their character quirks, but they are, well, just not as interesting as you want them to be. Kaz is an efficient make-the-trains-run-on-time sort, with a less than compelling personality. Emi is friendly and capable, but lapses into panic attacks at unexpected moments. And Tip, there’s no other way to say it, is a screaming queen. Which would be welcome if he screamed funny or perceptive dialogue, but Kissinger hasn’t given Hsu much to work with, and his timing feels off—everyone’s does. Director Sarah Norris likes overlapping dialogue, which drowns out some punch lines, and tends toward face front and declare in her blocking, which feels unnatural. The one completely satisfying performance comes from Lynskey, whose Stevie is soft-spoken, wounded, unhinged, and very real.
Stevie (Susan Lynskey) is a constituent and frequent caller to the congressman’s office. Photographs by Burdette Parks.
What Kissinger is trying to get at, it seems, is the generation gap in current politics, and the frustrations of being young, anxious to do good, and constrained by the unfair machinery set up by previous generations. It’s a worthy topic, and occasionally someone will make a trenchant observation about it: “I think things can change, I think people want things to change,” posits Kaz, in a rather lovely final scene outside the office, where Tip finally reveals something of himself and generates sympathy, a bit. But the tone is awkward—jokes about murder, bombs, terrorists, few of them genuinely amusing—and the best prescription her characters can come up with is, well, we have to keep trying. The audience is left hungry for more insight.
What it gets, instead, are irrelevancies. To what dramatic purpose does Kaz use they/them pronouns? Why is Emi barefoot? (The otherwise suitable costumes are by Krista Grevas.) Why do these three spend so much time trying to figure out Stevie’s motivations, when they’re laid out pretty straightforwardly? Why do they keep talking about towns in their district—Lansville, Fort Ridge, Gallerton—without clueing the audience in on them? And why can’t Tip come up with anything wittier than “Local news is for people who have given up”?
There’s plenty to be said about the current widespread malaise over the political system, and Kissinger comes close a couple of times—for example, when Emi says, “I want to help people, but I don’t know how to, and the world is on fire and I want to fix it, but it seems like maybe no one can.” That reverberates, but too much of This Is Government doesn’t. This is government? No, this is mostly small-talk.
This Is Government plays through Sept. 28 at Theater B at 59E59 (59 E 59 St.). Evening performances are at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2:15 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit www.59e59.org.
Playwright: Nina Kissinger
Director: Sarah Norris
Lighting Design: Hayley Garcia Parnell
Set Design: Daniel Allen
Sound Design: Jennie Gorn
Costume Design: Krista Grevas
Props Design: Peggy Orman
