What I liked
What I didn't like
My overall impression
Bull, the second production by Mike Bartlett put up at Rogue Machine Theatre, is directed by Jennifer Pollono and stars Josh Bitton, Kevin Daniels, and Lesley Fera as co-workers waiting for a performance review meeting in which one of them will be fired by their boss (Alex Whittington).
Fera and Daniels team up against Bitton with bullying cloaked in humor and fake niceties, escalating quickly to gaslighting. Bully is almost too kind a word – taunt and torture might be more apt.
Josh Bitton brings dazzling emotional life to the tormented Thomas who you empathize with and pity but also simultaneously want to side coach to stand up for himself and fight back.
The costuming is right on – an ill fitting suit for Thomas and accents of red for the pair of smug bullies.
The staging of Thomas’s futile blows that don’t land leave him tumbling against the ropes of the stage-turned-boxing-ring while also echoing a toreador’s taunting and dodging of a bull.
You wish Thomas was a journeyman boxer so he would at least be making something for his loss.
The singling out and tormenting of the weakest link leaves you feeling tense and a little on edge, and that’s when you know the play has done its job.
#seeitLA
