Magnificent Waste presented by Factory 449 at Flashpoint

Magnificent Waste

Flashpoint
916 G St NW Washington

Lizzie B makes shock art. Arden buys beautiful things. A young man wants to be famous. In a modern world addicted to sex, drugs, fashion and celebrity, Factory 449 explores America's appetite for excess and presents an unsettling portrait of its own undoing.

Presented by Factory 449

Thru - May 8, 2011

Price: $20

Show Type: Comedy/Drama

Running Time: 1 hour, 15 mins; no intermission

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Magnificent Waste Reviews

Average Rating based on 5 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Not Recommended

"...Svich has a rising reputation and gets her share of productions nationally, but “Magnificent Waste” is an older work that’s only now getting a shaky premiere. It’s a good guess that the dark moods, swirling language and visual potential of this play are combined more satisfyingly elsewhere in her oeuvre. As for the production, if it’s not a truism yet, it soon will be: Video-intensive shows such as this run the risk of making theatergoers long for a remote."

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- Nelson Pressley

DCist - Somewhat Recommended

"...Svich's symbolism can be heavy-handed, and with as many big themes as she tries to address, the piece often struggles to be as large as its ambitions. But she often displays a real gift for language and imagery, particularly when she finally gives the young man a voice as the play winds down. His monologue does a lot to tie the disparate threads together, though the ending is far from tidy. It's a difficult play to like, but full of promise and a sincere desire to engage and confront the audience."

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- Ian Buckwalter

Washington City Paper - Somewhat Recommended

"...The Factory 449 ensemble still seems warily uncertain about how broadly to play its characters’ corruptions and how earnestly to deliver the playwright’s diagnoses, and it may well be there’s no tone that could bring the two successfully together. Certainly the modulation isn’t quite right here: You get the sense of talented performers working frustratedly through dramaturgical thickets where somebody once thought they saw a path."

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- Trey Graham

Washington Blade - Recommended

"...For its third fully staged offering, Factory 449: a theatre collective is taking on the art world with a production of “Magnificent Waste,” playwright Caridad Svich’s polemic on excess and superficiality in our celebrity-driven culture."

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- Patrick Folliard

DCTheatreScene - Somewhat Recommended

Previewed at Page-to-Stage last September, Magnificent Waste, by the multicultural playwright Caridad Svich, confronts American consumerism with European nihilism. It is not a happy meeting.

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- Leslie Weisman

Magnificent Waste presented by Factory 449 at Flashpoint