Weiss plays the pompous, possessive John with polite condescension and smugly casual arrogance.īullock is brittle and emotional as Natalie, who seems cheerful at first but is soon tossing back way too much wine. Oreskes is dignified and grounded as Elliot, the moral center of the play, watching bemusedly as John opens bottle after bottle of expensive wine from his beloved wine closet with much fanfare. When John arrives home, he unexpectedly brings along Mark, a junior associate that he thinks might amuse Elliot. Their latest cause is raising money for the legal defense of another old college "compadre," a former Black Panther turned health care advocate, who's been arrested on federal terrorism charges.
The couple still gives money to liberal causes, while Natalie regretfully wishes she were "still in the trenches." Natalie makes occasional documentaries about oppressed people, while John is a powerful financier with his own wine collection and a personal sommelier. Natalie and Elliot happily reminisce about their college days of activism, open sex, enthusiastic drug use, and their "Das Kapital" reading group, while waiting for John to arrive home for dinner from the investment firm where he's a partner.Įlliot has devoted his working life to liberal causes, especially after losing his gay lover to AIDS 16 years earlier. Weiss), Natalie greets their old friend Elliot (Daniel Oreskes), just arrived from California. Barbs are also slung at checkbook liberals, in this sometimes-tense drama currently premiering off-Broadway at The Cherry Lane Theatre.Īt the Manhattan apartment of wealthy couple Natalie (Donna Bullock) and John Hudson (Michael T. While not exactly the dinner party from hell, a dinner with three middle-aged longtime friends who were radical political activists in college is thrown off-kilter by the last-minute arrival of a 30-year-old employee of the host.ĭavid Hay's new play "A Perfect Future" is a wine-soaked culture clash between Generation Apathy and a trio of baby boomers, who thought they could improve the world through protest.