What I liked
The character work was incredibly impressive. The 4 characters occupy positions and behaviors that should be very unlikable and far removed from a common reality yet the script very convincingly explored pitiable and reasonable justifications as to why the characters are the way they are.
What I didn't like
I’m very mixed about the stand-up introduction prior to the play. (Absolutely no disrespect to Stacy Dymalski who I found to be incredibly charming and charismatic for the role.)
On one hand, I feel that Karma in a Fishbowl can only really be appreciated once you’re given a very specific context behind the industry that the story and characters are built on. The performance and the content itself were very well done too. However, I wished the story within the play relied on itself to tell these messages rather than dumping them all so early on. As a result, the story came off as more predictable and straightforward in what it was depicting rather than the audience having to figure out the personalities of the characters as it went on.
My overall impression
A charming glimpse into a very specific subsection of the entertainment industry; parental managers titled Mom-agers within the play. The demographic isn’t a topic I’ve seen discussed very often and I can tell that the writer/director gathered this from many personal experiences. As stated in my likes, the character work is impressively done and the situation, while mostly abridged for comedy, does feel strikingly plausible. The best I could say is that I personally felt as if I had really met and learned about a group of people I never would’ve interacted with had I not seen this play.
