"Noam Chomsky, Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and a 'Tiny' Trump all on stage at the same time, verbally jousting with each other? Pedro Reyes' 'Manufacturing Mischief' at the Tank does, indeed, throw these historic figures together in a play that is intellectually stimulating and quite witty as these giants tear each other apart."
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"Writer Paul Hufker does not hold back in this keenly relevant script, and director Meghan Finn has sculpted this highly entertaining production along with its team of seasoned puppeteers. It's one of the most delightful pieces of theatre I've seen that offers debates about morality, politics, and possibly every last philosophical concept without insulting the intelligence of the audiences. That said, you'll get the most out of this show if you're up on current events."
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"'Manufacturing Mischief' casts a sardonic, skeptical, and often scathing eye on our current political and technological moment. It crams an extraordinary amount of commentary into a brief show–sometimes it whizzes by too fast to catch–but when it works, it’s bracing, thought-provoking, and sometimes hilarious...Reyes’s puppet construction makes the real figures delightfully recognizable...It raises some important ideas, though doesn’t fully explore any of them."
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"Takes aim at targets from toxic masculinity to our would-be technocratic overlords while maintaining a spirit of steadfast and endearing silliness...The play makes its themes very clear. Marx's is not the only song among the snappy, self-aware dialogue, up-to-the-minute jokes...The production is as willing to make jokes about Russian hooker pee as it is about linguistics, giving it a feel something like an exceptionally nerdy and historically knowledgeable episode of South Park."
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