A MacArthur 'genius' skewers philanthropy in a farcical play tackling oligarchy and arts funding
Set at a not-for-profit dance company's gala, "Prosperous Fools" invites questions about the moral value of philanthropy in a society denounced by the comedy as 'feudal.' A boorish patron goes mad trying vainly to wield his lacking creative capital and thus confirms the choreographer's fears of selling out to a sleazy oligarch who represents everything his art opposes. The show, written by Mac and directed by Darko Tresnjak, runs through June 29 at Brooklyn's Polonsky Shakespeare Center.
'I'm not trying to hurt anybody. I'm trying to get people to think differently about the world,' said Mac, whose gender pronoun is 'judy.'
'I just wish that all of the great philanthropists of America, and the world, would lead with, 'This is a temporary solution until we can figure out how to make a government of the people, for the people, by the people,'" Mac added. "Instead of, 'This is the solution: I should have all the money and then I get to decide how the world works.''
Don't let present day parallels distract you. The fundraiser's honored donor enters atop a fire-breathing bald eagle in a black graphic tee, blazer and cap much like Elon Musk's signature White House getup. He later dons the long red tie popular in MAGA world. But the resemblance doesn't mean Mac is meditating solely on recent events such as President Donald Trump's billionaire-filled administration and tightening grip over cultural pillars including the Kennedy Center.
The script reflects personal frustrations with philanthropy's uneven power dynamics navigated throughout a 30-year career spent in what Mac described as 'a million handshaking ceremonies," first as a cater-waiter and eventually as one of the celebrated honorees who donates performances to help fundraise.
Mac's desperate portrayal of the artist at the center of 'Prosperous Fools' only sharpens its skewering of wealthy philanthropists who take more than they give away. When the artist cries 'But why couldn't I have a good oligarch?' and bemoans that 'I should have stayed in the artistic integrity of obscurity,' it feels like a case of art imitating life.
Mainstream success came last decade for Mac. 'A 24-Decade History of Popular Music' was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2017 and Mac's Broadway debut play 'Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus' racked up seven Tony nominations in 2019.
'Prosperous Fools,' however, was written 12 years ago before much of the critical acclaim. Mac said 'someone with power' commissioned a translation of French playwright Molière's 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,' which mocks a status-obsessed middle class social climber.
Mac isn't surprised the original commissioner didn't want the final product. Molière is hardly present. And the play essentially advocates for an end to the perpetuation of culture that only the affluent deem worthy of funding.
Mac is also unsurprised it took over a decade to land another interested producer. The initial 40-person ballet troupe had to be shrunk to a more affordable ensemble of four dancers. Plus, its style, in Mac's judgment, is still rather 'queer' for a 'heteronormative' theater industry.
'And then the other reason is because I insult donors," Mac said.
'I don't think I insult donors," Mac added. "I ask donors to consider. And the theater is entrenched in making sure their donors feel good about themselves — not that their donors are in collaboration with us for us all to get to a place of better consciousness.'
The show's slapstick humor helps break down its fairly cerebral subject matter. In one of several moments of hilarity, the patron and his 'philanthropoid' — the ballet's artistic director, whose primary concern is securing donations — sway around the stage oinking like pigs. Mac's artist delivers scathing and highbrow critiques while pretending to be 'The Princess Bride' actor Wallace Shawn in a puppet costume. The gala's other honoree — a star singer called the 'patron saint of philanthropy" who wears a gown adorned with impoverished children's faces — makes no bones about her lust for Shawn.
But, as Mac knows, nonstop humor can have the effect of softening its target. 'Prosperous Fools' foregoes the actors' bows that typically end a play in favor of an epilogue, delivered by the artist in rhyming couplets, that serves as the show's final blow to 'philanthrocapitalism.'
'I want to be a tender heart in this too tough world trying to figure out how to maintain my tenderness and how to create revolution with tenderness. And I'm at a loss for it right now," Mac said. "Part of what the play is doing is saying, 'I'm at a loss. Are you? Do you have a solution for me?''
By skipping the curtain call, Mac practically demands that the crowd wrestle immediately with whether charity absolves wealth hoarders' greed — a question boldly put forth at the close of a Theatre for a New Audience season sponsored by Deloitte and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
___
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Greg Iles, Mississippi author of 'Natchez Burning' trilogy, dies of cancer at 65
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Greg Iles, the Mississippi author of the 'Natchez Burning' trilogy and other works, has died. He was 65. Iles died Friday after a decades-long battle with the blood cancer multiple myeloma, his literary agent Dan Conaway posted Saturday on Facebook. Initially diagnosed with the incurable condition in 1996, he kept his illness private until completing his final novel, 'Southern Man,' which was published in 2024. Iles was born in Germany but moved to Natchez, Mississippi, with his family when he was just three years old and developed a deep connection with the region. Many of his stories are set in Mississippi, including the 'Natchez Burning' trilogy, historical fiction suspense novels exploring race and class in the 1960s Jim Crow South. Conaway described Iles as 'warm, funny, fearless, and completely sui generis.' 'To be on the other end of the phone as he talked through character and plot, problem-solving on the fly, was to be witness to genius at work, plain and simple,' he wrote on Saturday. 'As a writer he fused story-craft, bone-deep humanity, and a growing sense of moral and political responsibility with the ferocious precisions of a whirling dervish or a master watchmaker.' In March 2011, Iles suffered a ruptured aorta and a partial leg amputation and spent eight days in a medically induced coma after another driver struck his car on Highway 61 near Natchez. He eventually recovered.
Associated Press
2 hours ago
- Associated Press
Greg Iles, Mississippi author of 'Natchez Burning' trilogy, dies of cancer at 65
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Greg Iles, the Mississippi author of the 'Natchez Burning' trilogy and other works, has died. He was 65. Iles died Friday after a decades-long battle with the blood cancer multiple myeloma, his literary agent Dan Conaway posted Saturday on Facebook. Initially diagnosed with the incurable condition in 1996, he kept his illness private until completing his final novel, 'Southern Man,' which was published in 2024. Iles was born in Germany but moved to Natchez, Mississippi, with his family when he was just three years old and developed a deep connection with the region. Many of his stories are set in Mississippi, including the 'Natchez Burning' trilogy, historical fiction suspense novels exploring race and class in the 1960s Jim Crow South. Conaway described Iles as 'warm, funny, fearless, and completely sui generis.' 'To be on the other end of the phone as he talked through character and plot, problem-solving on the fly, was to be witness to genius at work, plain and simple,' he wrote on Saturday. 'As a writer he fused story-craft, bone-deep humanity, and a growing sense of moral and political responsibility with the ferocious precisions of a whirling dervish or a master watchmaker.' In March 2011, Iles suffered a ruptured aorta and a partial leg amputation and spent eight days in a medically induced coma after another driver struck his car on Highway 61 near Natchez. He eventually recovered. Iles performed with the musical group The Rock Bottom Remainders along with popular authors Stephen King, Amy Tan and others.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Can Timothée Chalamet's new film Marty Supreme be the Karate Kid of table tennis?
It's fair to say table tennis movies are rare in Hollywood. But with Timothée Chalamet starring in Marty Supreme, there's a new chance for the sport to thrive. Timothée Chalamet plays table tennis now. His latest film is Marty Supreme, which is a loose biopic of American champion player Marty Reisman. It's directed by one of the Safdie brothers, Josh, so this could be Uncut Gems meets Balls of Fury — the mash-up we've all been waiting for. It's fair to say table tennis hasn't always been seen as the most cinematic of sports, but A24's film looks primed for an awards season run. If Chalamet serves table tennis all the way to the Oscars, there will be a lot more eyes on it than ever before. Could this trigger an explosion of popularity in the sport, as Drive to Survive did for Formula One? The most famous example of this phenomenon is, perhaps, The Karate Kid. When that movie landed in cinemas in 1984 and became a beloved classic, it triggered a huge rise in the number of Americans pursuing martial arts. By the end of the 20th century, the number of martial arts students in the US under the age of 12 was growing by 15% each year. It's fair to say there has never been a table tennis movie of such prominence — with apologies to the aforementioned Balls of Fury. Table tennis has cropped up on the big screen occasionally, with Tom Hanks playing the sport to American hero status in a memorable sequence from Forrest Gump. Eagle-eyed table tennis fans will notice that film showcases Forrest moving from a traditional western "shake-hands" grip to the "penhold" grip favoured by many Chinese players. It's a neat Easter egg for devotees of the sport, who rarely get to see it on screen. It's even more uncommon to see table tennis truly take centre stage, as it does in Marty Supreme — especially with a star as shiny as Chalamet doling out the topspin. The question is whether the movie's journey through the box office will encourage people to pick up a bat in the real world and head down to their local leisure centre for a game or two. Read more: The new Timothée Chalamet movie trailer is about a sport no one respects (For The Win, 1 min read) "He's one of the biggest actors in the world, so I'm pretty sure people will want to go and see it," says Liam Pitchford — a four-time Team GB Olympian and Commonwealth gold medallist in the sport. "I hope it portrays table tennis in a good way. We've kind of been in the shadows as a sport and everyone thinks they can play table tennis, so people don't really understand how hard it is. I'd like to think it can bring a bit of much-needed good publicity to table tennis." Pitchford says that, although table tennis is huge in Asia, it has struggled to get a foothold in the West — something a film of this size might be able to help with. "I believe table tennis needs to be big in America for it to be a bit more in the public eye and hopefully this can help with that. Hopefully people watch it and think they want to give table tennis a go." Read more: Timothée Chalamet trained for months to play table tennis champ in Marty Supreme (Cover Media, 1 min read) Robert Ridge — a Table Tennis England level three head coach — agrees that the film could encourage people to give the sport a try for real. "I think many people will find the film fascinating and be able to relate to their personal experiences of playing the game at school, home or holiday," he says. Chalamet, for his part, refused to cut corners and spent months training alongside some of today's most prominent table tennis stars. "He wanted to be like a real [professional] ping pong player when he started shooting," cinematographer Darius Khondji revealed to Variety. He added: "You can do anything, any camera tricks you want, but you need to have a core." The actor's work might well have paid off. Ridge says: "There have been very few films which have involved table tennis over the years, such as Forrest Gump. But [Marty Supreme] does seem to have captured the excitement and tactical and technical aspects of the game at that time." Read more: How Adrien Brody upset Timothee Chalamet's big Oscar moment (Yahoo Entertainment, 3 min read) Safdie's directorial work in the past — usually alongside his brother Benny — has traded in claustrophobia and anxiety. That's something that lends itself very nicely to table tennis, with action focused on an often tiny table in an enormous sports arena. It's both gargantuan and intimate, which feels like the perfect canvas for a high-stress Safdie story. Pitchford will certainly be in the audience. "I know a couple of people that actually got cameos, so I'll definitely be watching," he says. "I think as a sport we need to grow and this is an opportunity, with a big star cast like they've got. It will be fun to watch." There is a little bit of bad news for table tennis fans after all this, though. According to Khondji, "the movie is about everything but ping pong". Well, that's the equivalent of a mishit serve straight into the net. Marty Supreme will be released into UK cinemas on 26 December.
