Synopsis
(5M)
As Jack Helbig writes in The Chicago Reader, "Free Enterprise is at once a witty parody--of Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Pinter (The Dumb Waiter), and Mamet (anything between American Buffalo and House of Games)--and a dramatic work in its own right. It manages the difficult trick of telling an interesting story--about a couple of grifters waiting for a guy who has plans for a machine that makes diamonds real cheap--even as it presents a critique of free-market capitalism." The small-time grifters become wrapped up in a big con, but who is conning whom?
Production History
Free Enterprise was first performed in Chicago by the CollaborAction Theatre Company. It was developed, in part, through readings at Victory Gardens Theater (Chicago), The Actor's Group (Los Angeles), Chicago Dramatists, and the Road Theatre Company (Los Angeles). The play was a finalist at the New Work Festival presented by the Mark Taper Forum (Center Stage), and a semifinalist for the O'Neill Playwrights Conference.
