The new play Waiting For Barnum is another example of what an arts grant can do for a local artist.
Playwright Jenny Fox recently earned her second award from the Nevada Arts Council, which she used to workshop her latest production. Waiting for Barnum is a satire about a restaurant where four women servers try to keep their dignity as they aim to please three disrespectful male customers. Fox tackles a handful of modern conditions, including capitalism and the laborers at its mercy.
"Our whole world is commodified and transactional," says Fox. "The question we ask in Waiting For Barnum is, if we have a structural power imbalance, is anything ever really consensual?"
Fox uses a variety of motifs and cultural institutions to drive her point home, from the Hooters-style "breastaurant" to its theming — the circus, a place where both animal and human performers have been known to be exploited and/or abused. Though the city setting isn't specified, it almost seems like the play couldn't have come from anywhere but Las Vegas.
"Nothing is more Vegas than selling women," says Fox. "There's a lot that's wonderful about Vegas ... but [regarding] the analogy of the circus, it's an illusion that we're kidding ourselves if we don't all recognize that no matter where we work, or what we do, we're all affecting vulnerable people in our community."
The challenge for Fox and her cast — and their audiences — is finding the comedy in the commentary, and vice versa. "Satire is a weapon to be yielded responsibly," says Fox. "We don't satire to mock, we satire to challenge cultural norms that are harmful."
The play debuts April 25 at Super Summer Theater Studios.
