PROSPEROUS FOOLS Targets the Art x Philanthropy Set — Review
In their very funny, very loose Molière adaptation, Taylor Mac plays an artist commissioned to mount a dance piece for a glossy ballet company’s annual benefit as it honors a beloved actress whose nonstop philanthropy beats all into dazzled adoration and a pharma-tech manchild looking to launder his reputation.
The trio’s name is never actually heard in the show: the actress, ####-###, is gloriously referred to, per the script, “as if a choir is heralding the appearance of an angel;” $#@%$, the villain, “as if a censor buzzer has just gone off;” and Mac’s character is simply Artist. That’s the level of satirical bluntness in the piece, which crescendos in absurdity as Artist’s troupe and the company’s sleazy-frazzled artistic director (Jennifer Regan’s spidery “Philanthropoid”) struggle to appease all, and ends with an earnest call-to-artistic-respect from Mac, delivered in verse.
There’s some classic Greek in its tragicomic inevitability (Artist’s work is inspired by Prometheus), as well as some commedia dell’arte, evoking yet not dutifully assigning roles from that latter form and implying that all entangled in the contemporary Art x Philanthropy web are fools. Each relationship is mined for the counteractive riches in this immemorial daisy chain:
Artist and Philanthropoid get art, but diverge on how to fund it. Philanthropoid and $#@%$ understand bottom lines, yet only one admits soul-killing remorse. $#@%$ and ####-### know power, though one hoards fame and the other, fortune. And finally, Artist rails against their reliance on $#@%$’s cash and ####-###’s glamor, the two deadly muses.
The backstage antics, blending sharp critique with loose-limbed slapstick, create a digestible, kaleidoscopic Muppet Show style (who is the ultimate Artist Martyr Fool, if not Kermit?) and are aided by Alexander Dodge’s playground-like set.
The Darko Tresnjak-directed production’s biggest surprise is Sierra Boggess, as the entrancing actress, who wields a career’s worth of playing Christine Daaé types into a ferociously funny and biting performance. With her regal air, she gives a self-congratulatory speech on why she’s justified in not sparing change for beggars, the ouroboric gymnastics of which achieve, in a few minutes, what Real Housewives fans have sought in that decadeslong franchise.
Her arrival in an extravagant gown, embroidered with the faces of the starving children she aids, and with a prop one in tow (Aerina Park DeBoer), is the highlight of Anita Yavich’s costume design. The other, which a decade ago might have appeared too on-the-nose, is for $#@%$ (Jason O’Connell), whose Trumpian speech pattern is physicalized via Musk drag: black baseball cap, sneakers and a t-shirt with block letters spelling, “TIME FOR MY NAP.”
In glorious clownish fashion, the piece sustains a living relationship with its audience, so it feels only natural, even right, when Mac puts on a jester cap to firmly present its intended questions, namely, how much are we willing to take, or give? If art is indeed a reflection of our world, the title Prosperous Fools strikes a poignant deal between Pierrot and Prometheus.
Prosperous Fools is in performance through June 29, 2025 at Theatre for a New Audience on Ashland Place in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.
