Politicians come and go, but bureaucracies endure. Daniel R. O’Brien explores that idea in Jugular, a ninety-minute political satire about urgent contemporary issues. A graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts, O’Brien is an award-winning playwright.
The play centers on three people competing for control of the federal bureaucracy. Benedict Diamond, head of the Office of General Affairs, is the world’s most powerful bureaucrat. His mantra is, “Keep your hands clean and your conscience flexible.” James B. Kennedy plays Diamond as a man so secure in his authority that he can sit at his desk with his feet up and do nothing. Kennedy, an experienced Equity actor, has performed on stages from New York to Scotland. Diamond is challenged by William Carmick, an idealistic newly appointed investigator played by Leland Grant, an Equity actor with stage and television credits. Carmick’s authority is to investigate the finances of any government office. This gives him the power to cripple a bureaucracy by cutting off its funding. As Carmick and Diamond struggle for control, Brittany Halls appears as Jackie, a woman determined to expand her influence and willing to betray both men to do so. Halls, who has performed in many one-woman shows, portrays Jackie as a woman who hides her ambition while serving men.
Carmick first challenges a program of mandatory injections that is revealed to have a deadly side effect. He demands accountability, but Diamond recasts the deaths as heroic sacrifices made to save loved ones. He also accuses Carmick of interfering with personal freedom and dismisses the threat of congressional scrutiny. Carmick retreats, then returns with a new charge: financial malfeasance.
As the two men spar, it becomes clear that these “crimes” are part of a plot to install computer interfaces in everyone, allowing people to be controlled from birth until after death. Jackie realizes that Carmick poses a real threat to Diamond because he can control the flow of funds. She switches sides and seduces Carmick, revealing that the only way to defeat Diamond is through genealogy.
Even amid the satire, O’Brien delivers sharp political commentary. The men present their family trees to claim superiority: Carmick traces his lineage directly to the pharaoh Akhenaten, while Diamond counters by proving he descends from the emperor Domitian. Diamond appears in a toga with gold oak leaves; Carmick wears a robe, carries a crook, and dons a mask of Anubis.
Both rulers tried to control bureaucracies. Akhenaten abandoned ancient Egypt’s traditional polytheistic religion and ordered the construction of a new capital, likely to weaken the priests and their bureaucracy in Thebes. After his death, those reforms were reversed: his monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name was removed from lists of rulers. Domitian, the Roman emperor, was known for strict, authoritarian rule. He treated the Senate with contempt and stripped it of real power before he was assassinated in 96 C.E. The Senate immediately condemned him. Despite their early success, both rulers were ultimately destroyed by bureaucracies.
The struggle continues as both men compete for power, and Carmick eventually triumphs. Jackie briefly seems defeated, since Carmick demands complete loyalty. However, she seduces Carmick again. Yet despite this ending, little appears to have changed. Jugular suggests that liberal commentator Mary McCarthy was right when she wrote in the 1950s that “bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.” O’Brien’s play warns that this remains true.
After the performance, O’Brien joined a talkback. He explained that he wrote Jugular because he was disturbed by current events, but he repeatedly encouraged the audience to draw its own conclusions about the play’s meaning.
AMT Theater aims to build a regional theater within the theater district. The company is dedicated to developing new work and providing a welcoming home for everyone involved in theater. As part of that mission, AMT supports the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival (BBTF). Jugular exemplifies the kind of work the organization champions. AMT Theater is presenting multiple productions through August 16, with up to three shows each day except Monday and Tuesday. Come enjoy a performance!
