The Low Road

Synopsis

"Tis one thing to admit the inescapable cruelty of nature, friend, but quite a different one to encourage it." A young entrepreneur sets out on a quest for wealth with priceless ambition and a purse of gold. A fable of free market economics and cut-throat capitalism.

Our Review:

28 March 2013

Bruce Norris' third play at the Royal Court is billed as 'a fable of free market economics and cut-throat capitalism' and is ambitious in scale: it has a cast of 19 and is set in New England in the years 1759-1776, with ‘a brief detour to the present’.

The familiar themes of race and social aspiration abound, but this time the satirical focus is squarely on the emergence of wealth and the desire to be better than your neighbour. In picaresque style we follow the fortunes of a young mathematical whizzkid, Jim Trumpett, who, despite the drawback of being an abandoned bastard child brought up in a brothel, climbs the social ladder – via a quick double murder - with a black servant who corrects him on his English.

If we don’t quite get the point about Western civilisation being built on selfishness, slavery, prostitution and greed, the second act brings us smack up to date, wi...

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Latest User Review

rds - 8 May 2013:

JC sums it up well - Candide meets Enron. One of the most enjoyable afternoons spent at the theatre for a long while. 2hrs 50, but it flew round. Should get a transfer. 10/10....

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