What I liked
I liked that I was automatically focusing on who was not talking during scenes. I kept thinking “Well, how is Adi processing what Neil saying?” “Well, how is Neil processing what Adi is saying?”
The jokes landed exactly as how I was hoping they would. The Elon Musk’s nazification of twitter bit got to me (maybe because I was just ruminating on a dumb tweet before the show, who knows 🤷♂️)
The climax hit for me like I didn’t it think it would (since the moment is baked into the premise of the show) but Sara’s performance got me there. I’m grateful to myself I remembered to pack tissues in my side bag.
And the pacing was fantastic. Scene transitions seamless, and I got an intuitive sense of the characters and extended world without having to rack my brain.
What I didn't like
I just wanna attend again, focusing more on the actor presently speaking, as well as the structure of the script, then maybe I’ll have clever feedback.
I’ll report back in a few days. 🤓
My overall impression
A powerfully acted production that not only thoroughly rips America’s garbage healthcare system a new one, but allows me to feel a certain type of way so that I laugh-so-I-don’t-cry but also cry-so-I-wanna-do-something. Does that make sense? No? Well, Termination Fee does make a heck of a lot of sense. The jokes are poignant, relatable, and relevant to the moment. The timelessness struck me, because some lines felt almost like they could have been written just that morning, months ago, or 10 years prior. The story set out what it aimed to achieve, and is exactly the art we need in our culture today, given the hyper-capitalist, hyper-exploitative nature of our systems – especially for-profit healthcare – that are designed to tear us down physically, emotionally, and socially.
