Back in 2022, Elizabeth Price’s old college friend couldn’t stop raving about a cutting-edge, corporate thriller-style dark comedy called BURST whose premiere she’d attended at Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, NY. Actor/director Price was also instantly impressed by award-winning playwright Rachel Bublitz’s disturbingly timely script and, as a longstanding New City Players (NCP) company member, immediately shared it with producing artistic director Tim Davis, who then asked if she wanted to direct the show. Her response – an enthusiastic “yes”; the only problem being the company had already committed their schedule for the year, and then some. So, despite “bursting” at the seams to share this unconventional play with their audiences, it would need to wait for a while.
The perfect time has arrived. The southeastern premiere of Burst now serves as a powerful closer to NCP’s landmark 10th Anniversary Season. The health and environmental issues Burst addresses – i.e., how to safely rid the world of plastic waste that’s popping up everywhere, in increasing numbers, infecting our oceans, our food supply and, in microplastic form, lodged within every cell of our bodies – has never been more urgent. Like a stealthy, pandemic super-spreader, the worldwide crisis has finally hit headline news.
It’s easy to recognize the inspiration for Burst’s main character in the highly publicized, spectacular rise and fall of beautiful, charismatic, and driven young female entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes and her aspirational medical tech startup, Theranos. Director Price even cites a list of Holmes’s opinions on life, business, and invention, in the program’s “Note from the Director.” Price’s final personal comment also sheds light on the play’s title: “The bubble is beautiful, until it bursts.”
Despite no real evidence (though it likely began innocently enough, with Holmes believing that her “end would justify the means,” and seed money would fund the research to make her dream come true of a quick-and-easy universal blood testing method), she gained the support of powerful government leaders. Their backing influenced serious investors. By the time her house of cards was exposed, the company had a contract with Walgreens to feature her finger-stick method and Edson blood test machines at their stores. The machines never actually worked, and in January 2022 Holmes was found guilty of defrauding investors. She was sentenced to serve over a decade in prison and, with her business partner, ordered to pay $452 million in restitution.
Maybe attractive, female-run tech startups are more likely to be publicized. (A fact met with ongoing “sexism” derision, and opportunity, for our show’s female lead.) But practically all new ventures require a passionately ambitious, hyper-dedicated smart leader with an original vision like that of Sarah Boyd, founder of Tactix, whose grandiose mission is to eliminate plastic from the earth. But, like what happened to Holmes (and likely to many), when confronted by a journalist’s relentless, fact-checked questions and wavering support from her company’s conscience-conflicted chief technology officer, gaps between company promises and reality suddenly appear.
The hour-and-45-minute thriller-comedy takes place during one late, electric night at the Tactix office. Where tensions, accompanied by some hilarious exaggerations, steadily rise. And we observe, often with bated breath, as the worlds of three strong women collide: They are Nicole Hulett as CEO Sarah Boyd, Mary Gundlach as CTO Jennifer Weaver, and Dayana Morales as journalist Alexis Lyons. And when the night ends, no one (including the audience) is left intact. Except maybe for zealous young reporter Alexis, whose dogged research will likely land her a first major scoop.
I can’t help thinking how this play perfectly reflects New City Players’ stated mission of “staging transformative works of live theatre and serving as a public square where stories spark dialogue…” There is certainly a lot to talk about afterwards and, in true NCP fashion, the company offers a plethora of post-show opportunities to “wine-down” for discussions with cast and crew. Even a special Sunday (which I attended) where we got to experience a talkback with the playwright herself! A Monday evening playwriting masterclass called “How to Build a Playwright” with Rachel Bublitz, followed the next day.
But all seriousness aside, in a short video post, director Price notes: “In this play of one 105-minute scene, we get at the inherent foibles of the visionary founder’s claims or hopes that they can save the world.” Price ends by inviting us to “Come see New City Players’ visionary production of Burst … all while laughing your ass off!”
Tim Davis begins with the “funny” in his summary as well, writing: “Burst points a funny and perceptive finger at corporate responsibility, power, and the lengths a person will go to make their dream a reality. It’s the kind of play that will make you laugh and squirm in your seat at the same time. I can’t wait for audiences to get in this pressure cooker of dark comedy for an hour and 45 minutes.”
The play opens to a striking stage set by scenic designer Aubrey Rodriguez, constructed by scenic builders, MNM Builds, with props and set dressing by Jameelah Bailey. We’re dazzled by a perfectly put together wall of plastic bottles, ready for recycling, but here forming a beautiful wall-art collage that’s even color-coordinated to match the modern office furnishings in front. The time is The Present and, before and between scenes, we’re treated to contemporary pop music (Ernesto K. Gonzalez sound design), with a concentration on energetic hip hop beats to keep employee energy up … along with newly ordered ping pong tables. Sarah and Jennifer’s Mountain View, CA, Silicon Valley-style startup has expanded to several locations and acquired major funding over their ten years in business. Now Sarah is about to announce a deal with a major consumer manufacturer to produce completely bio-degradable plastic containers for their millions of toothpaste tubes.
There’s only one catch. Tactix’s chief technology scientist, Jennifer, hasn’t yet managed to scale up from small biodegradability success in the lab to mass- or even 20-percent plastic extinction. No matter how many dollars CEO Sarah raises for her visionary quest, real science depends on multitudes of experiments involving numerous hypotheses that don’t pan out and countless hours of checking and rechecking results that do. It simply can’t be forced to perform on schedule. A fact of science life that creates endless worry for honest and moral CTO Jennifer, who can’t help butting heads with her business partner and longtime university friend, Sarah, as she relentlessly pursues a full-speed-ahead fantasy trajectory of universal plastic annihilation – whether her company has developed the tools to make it so … or not. And Sarah has no qualms about railroading and annihilating anyone who stands in her way.
As Sarah announces in her final impassioned speech (where she attempts to justify turning on her long-time professor/mentor as well as her fellow founding business partner and friend): “It doesn’t really matter that I can’t change plastic. What matters is that people can feel better about themselves. I tell a good story, I sell a good package, and that’s what counts. It’s not the age of innovation; it’s the age of marketing. And I’m the Marketing Master.” Given our current political climate, it’s getting harder to dispute her point. But what really gave me chills was her final social observation: “If there’s one thing people hate more than anything these days, it’s the truth.”
How in the world did she (and we) become so jaded? We first encounter Sarah under a spotlight (Annabel Herrera lighting design) practicing a company presentation that’s impassioned, informative, and sounds much like a TED Talk. But it’s late at night, and she’s angry at her longtime assistant for not keeping her hours and having the gall to leave at 7 pm without checking in first for permission. She knows this because, fuming, she’d asked internal security to supply her departure time. Then fires her assistant without a second glance, despite CTO Jennifer’s protestations, who’d suddenly shown up, (also to her dismay). But Sarah attempts to hide her rejection … as long as Jennifer won’t talk about her jury appearance tomorrow (their legal counsel had provided her with a testimony script, after all) or anything else for that matter.
Mere exhaustion can’t provide enough of an excuse for Sarah’s ensuing self-involved and nasty narcissistic comments about her best friend’s possible nuptials! They are so over the top, that they can’t help but be funny, and this scenario serves as but the first instance of how our humanly compromised tech leader descends into parody. At least our horror at her despicable actions and words can be expelled through laughter!
Nicole Hulett, who plays Sarah, has starred in several prestigious local South Florida productions of late (including earlier ones in her native Australia). She has a lovely light accent that might have added credibility to her role as CEO of a tech firm, but I was most impressed by her quicksilver mood changes and emotional meltdowns. She raved, she danced, she spouted visionary jargon like an idolized preacher and, when slighted, responded venomously like a snake. She’s not a lady to be messed with, for sure. And won’t ever accept an olive branch – even when offered by her best and only friend to help her survive.
While the other two performers (also excellent in their portrayals and excellently cast) get a bit of a break behind the plastic wall when not in-scene, Nicole Hulett’s Sarah Boyd (cleverly outfitted in a bespoke company-logo vest by costume, hair & makeup designer Casey Sacco) demands 100 percent attention while onstage and is “on” 100 percent of the time! Through stark scene beats (more Ernesto K. Gonzalez sound design) and light flashes from bright white to soft red (and Annabel Herrera lighting design), evoking the many moods of Sarah, Hulett never misses a line, and keeps us mesmerized throughout her every fierce, fiery, and frighteningly frantic maneuvers.
Sarah’s founding partner Jennifer Weaver – portrayed stupendously by Mary Gundlach, a Ft. Lauderdale-based director/actor/musician and educator who’s also starred in several recent local shows – exhibits a dizzying array of emotions in response to her own conscience and inner doubts, as well as the shocking behavior and betrayals of her friend and company co-founder. We can’t help but feel for the shy, dedicated scientist who just wants to get on with her work, but instead feels driven to confront her longtime business partner after one betrayal too many (to her relationship with science, not their friendship, yet). And later, when she realizes how her candor had played a part in her friend’s downfall, despite Sarah’s incessant bullying to do her bidding, she offers her an olive branch and a way of starting over, with honesty. It was refreshing to see honest and forgiving people of conscience still exist in this world. But sadly, it would appear even after the once high and mighty have fallen, they never learn.
