About the Show

Part of The Flea's "Mac Wellman: Perfect Catastrophes" series, "Bad Penny" asks: how do we make choices in the face of the end of the world as we know it?

From the show:

HEADS. TAILS. THE PARK. THE BOATMAN.

A man and a woman sit in a park. They appear to be a couple, but aren’t. The man is clutching a car tire. The woman has a penny in her pocket. The mythical Boatman of Bow Bridge is coming. He is coming to take away the person who is in possession of the penny. How do we make choices in the face of the end of the world as we know it?

Critic Reviews (5)

"Mac Wellman’s ‘Bad Penny’ Promises a Boat Ride to Hell: The Flea Theater has revived this brief play, in which a flat tire is the least of the problems you might encounter in Central Park."
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"Mac Wellman's skewering of America in 'BAD PENNY' and 'SINCERITY FOREVER' at Flea Theater"
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"From the evidence of the 1990 Sincerity Forever and 1989 'Bad Penny,' Wellman is not particularly interested in plot but makes copious use of satire, poetry and symbolism to write absurdist plays which skewer hypocrisy and pretense in America."
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"A day in the park in New York, but it's not a walk in the park….a heightened dramatic distillation and affectionate parody of what it's like to live in New York, and... to be a New Yorker.. would surely have worked better in a set, or setting, more recognizably NYC."
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"Nonlinear, linguistically challenging, intellectually slippery, politically charged, and morally determined…Wellman's script reveals considerable wit mingled with numerous provocative notions. Very little, however, comes through in the Flea's jumbled production."
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Cast and creative team