In a week themed “Comedy Now: A Week Curated by Lewis Black,” there will be two special staged readings of Black’s The Deal at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m today in Bratton Theater. The 4 p.m. reading will feature Joe Grifasi and Mark Linn-Baker, and the 7 p.m. will feature Brooke Adams and Tony Shalhoub. Following each 50-minute performance, Black will join the actors in a panel discussion.
The $25 tickets are general admission and sold at the Main Gate Welcome Center, Visitors Center ticket offices and one hour before curtain at the Bratton Theater kiosk.
Black’s The Deal is a searing one-act satire that follows the negotiations of two extremely wealthy elites vying for control of the world’s wealth. The play — intended for adult audiences due to its language — reveals the far-reaching implications of power and wealth amid a spiraling descent into chaos.
“Strangely enough, I think when Lewis wrote this play and it was performed back in the ’80s, it almost seemed like it pulled things out too far in a couple moments,” said Grifasi, longtime friend and collaborator of Black, “but I don’t think so anymore.”
Grifasi will return to Bratton alongside Linn-Baker to perform The Deal, having first given a reading of the play during 2021’s week dedicated to comedy. Grifasi first came to Chautauqua in 2017 with Black for Chautauqua’s inaugural comedy week, and Grifasi said he’s excited for his fourth visit. Of the 40 plays Black has written throughout his career, The Deal remains Grifasi’s favorite.
“I think it’s the best thing (Black) has ever written. It came out fully formed,” Grifasi said.
While many comedy plays need revision over time to update references and allusions, Grifasi said, The Deal is as — if not more — prescient as when it first hit the stage.
“The world got rewritten, and the play stayed the same,” he said.
Grifasi, Linn-Baker and Black all studied drama at Yale School of Drama. In New York, Black and Grifasi began collaborating in a basement theater at the West Bank Café where Black was the playwright-in-residence — they haven’t stopped collaborating. Grifasi starred in the 1998 film adaptation of “The Deal,” was featured in Black’s 2006 comedy special “Red, White and Screwed,” and is known for his roles in the films “The Deer Hunter,” “Natural Born Killers” and “Presumed Innocent.” Linn-Baker is known for his role in the sitcom “Perfect Strangers” and the film “My Favorite Year.” He collaborated with Black in the cabaret-style production The Laundry Hour in the 1980s.
Shalhoub, a classmate of Grifasi’s at Yale, performed in the earliest productions of The Deal. Known for his titular role in “Monk,” as well as his roles in “Men in Black,” “Galaxy Quest” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Shalhoub will read the play alongside Adams (“Days of Heaven,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “The Dead Zone”) in the evening.
In a week themed “Comedy Now,” Grifasi hopes that audiences recognize the hilarity and absurdity in the play, particularly since the satirized circumstances of two uber-rich moguls negotiating the world’s fate might seem eerily prophetic.
“One of the things that’s been lost a lot recently is the function of satire because what we see now a lot and hear out of people’s — important people’s — mouths is strangely satire itself,” Grifasi said.
When the world seems to spiral out of control, Grifasi emphasized that satire not only lets us share a laugh but it gives us a better perspective of the world. He described Chautauqua audiences as uniquely curious in all aspects of process and production.
“I’ve always worked with a theater audience in various climates. But Chautauqua audiences want to actually know about the thinking behind everything they’re looking at,” he said. “Regular audiences just like to get in the car and go for a fun ride. Chautauqua audiences like to pull the car over and lift up the hood.”
For the post-performance conversation with Linn-Baker and Black, Grifasi said he looks forward to fielding questions from an audience who might be experiencing the play for the first time. Grifasi said that as an actor, the initial draw of the play’s content and messages might fall to the wayside while performing.
“When you do a talkback, oftentimes the audience revives that,” Grifasi said. “It’s like stirring sediment — then it comes back to you because they’re actually dealing with their first impulses, which is what you dealt with when you first started rehearsing and thinking about the play.”
Grifasi said it is easy to draw parallels between scenes of The Deal on the Bratton stage and the events of today on the world stage.
“The only difference is when you go see a play and you walk out the door again, everything’s normal on the street,” he said.
