“The Garbologists” is a tidy little play about big piles of trash. Lindsay Joelle’s uncluttered two-character comedy/drama, which has had numerous productions around the country, is getting its Connecticut premiere at TheaterWorks Hartford through Feb. 25. And it does not stink.
When the play begins, the fit, yet grizzled, 41-year-old Danny, who has been a sanitation worker for nine years, is showing the ropes to the new partner on his route, Marlowe. She’s a young Black woman with a Columbia University education. Danny gives Marlowe the nickname “Shakespeare” and even quotes a few lines of “Hamlet” to her. He also expounds on his work philosophy.
“You have to read the bags,” he told her. “You have to read the street.”
Marlowe may have a master’s degree but is not a keen student of what she and Danny come to jokingly call garbology. She’s already studied the job manual and doesn’t need the refresher course. A few scenes in, she’s complaining, “It’s been three days and you’re still monologuing.”
Joelle passes on a lot of fascinating trivia about trash work. Can sanitation workers take home cool stuff they find on the job? Can they keep the cash when residents tip or reward them? Does one person drive while the others toss the trash in the back, or do they each do a little of both?
Uplifting and funny, ‘The Garbologists’ is ready to talk trash at TheaterWorks Hartford
The playwright also imparts a great deal of wisdom. This is a job that requires careful mental and physical balance. It’s also work that people do to escape from other things. Danny is divorced, barely sees his child and has ongoing trouble with his co-workers. Marlowe has gravitated to the sanitation trade after years in academia and has experienced trauma and loss. They both have lots of issues to work out. They tend to do it by keeping their secrets from each other until they abruptly blurt them out in a fit of anger. They don’t get along much of the time, but they do bond closely enough to go out drinking, say soothing words to calm each other’s freak-outs and share the various aggravations of sanitation work.
There’s an underlying spirituality to “The Garbologists” that is reminiscent of Lynn Nottage’s “Clyde’s,” which TheaterWorks staged last year. “Clyde’s” proclaimed the mystical power of gourmet sandwiches. “The Garbologists” finds revelations in refuse.
Like TheaterWorks did with “Clyde’s,” “The Garbologists” is staged very close to the audience for the optimal voyeuristic overheard experience.
Black trash bags extend from the edges of the stage out into the auditorium. The small TheaterWorks backstage has been stripped to the building’s back walls, exposing its natural pipes and wires. When the weather turns cold, the audience feels it thanks to a nifty technical effect.
The environment is all-encompassing, though not especially realistic. It’s just theatrically grand. The trash bags are all the same brand, unlike in the real world where trash takes many forms. Whatever is in those bags does not smell, though there are convincing squirts of foul liquid. The stage area is flat and clean and neatly swept. The garbage truck is a monolith, the only vehicle onstage. Traffic and the hustle-bustle of New York City is suggested by sound effects, pop music playing distantly in the background and the workers’ much-used cell phones.
But the extravagant manner in which TheaterWorks has dressed up this simple little play really helps deliver its message of how even a tenuous friendship can help overcome adversity. Duplicating the giant scale of the cab of a garbage truck helps frame one of the most fraught moments of the drama when a driver gets distracted. Showing the vast back of the truck, with Danny tediously explaining all the potential dangers of tossing trash indiscriminately into its gaping maw, makes you appreciate the work Danny and Marlowe are doing.
Jeff Brooks and Bebe Nicole Simpson, both New York actors, bring the city in their voices. They’re not overplaying the accents or the urban attitude. Brooks plays Danny as a tightly wound and aggressively social nice guy who can easily turn mean. Simpson maintains an inner mystery. You never forget that she’s hiding a secret, and the suspense builds beautifully.
Still, when Marlowe sighs that Danny is “monologuing,” the term is entirely accurate. The monologues and the dialogue are all carefully and cleverly scripted and cleanly delivered. The actors aren’t grubby or sweaty, and their clothes are neatly pressed. This also isn’t one of those shows where the actors cough or pause or slump or stammer, or where the speeches sound spontaneous. “The Garbologists” feels like a play, and Rob Ruggiero’s direction stages it with straightforward clarity and a minimum of fussiness.
The story is about trash and clutter, but it couldn’t be more cleanly delivered.
“The Garbologists” by Lindsay Joelle, directed by Rob Ruggiero, runs through Feb. 25 at TheaterWorks Hartford, 233 Pearl St., Hartford. Performances are Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. $35-$70. twhartford.org/portfolio-items/the-garbologist/.
