peteg's blog - noise - theatre - 2015 04 18 TheJungle

Oracle Theatre: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle at the Public Access Theatre.

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Notionally free, booked 2015-03-29, $20 donation after the show. I felt pretty crap after a week on the turps but didn't factor that into my plan to walk up to the theatre in cool to cold weather. The chicken cashew at Asian Mix Cafe is OK but not awesome. I got there quite early and so scored the only chair in the foyer, but was one of the last timely people to go in. I sat next to the bloke who had the worst seat in the house, and by the time things got under way it was beyond packed. This is the story of how migrants to Chicago fared at the tail end of the 19th century, when capitalism was marginally less bridled. A bit too much happened on the killing floor, given the seating layout. The cast is quite able, and there were plenty of cute theatrical devices, but the material was tired: the working stiff as an unimaginative, credulous and continually exploited non-speaker of English. Pretty much what Justin Hayford said at the Reader about its initial run.