Jurassic Review – A tumultuous clash of logic and lies with dueling dinosaurs | stage

toLogic and reason are torn to shreds in Tim Foley’s sharp and absurd satire about fossils and fake news. Although it slightly over-extends its central idea, Jurassic is a boxing match of a play, drawing the world’s current brand of political debate into a silly, angry comedy about dinosaurs and destruction.

Jay (Alastair Michael) loses his university job in the paleontology department because the new dean, whose real name is Dean (Matt Holt), believes Jurassic Park is real. What good is a guy studying dinosaur fossils now that he’s got the real thing? While Jay tries not to pop a blood vessel while arguing against Dean’s apparent insanity, this diatribe exploits the impossibility of winning an argument with someone playing by a completely different set of rules.

From this ridiculous, illogical rule, a snowball game begins. Dean uses misinformation to dismember the university in an effort to save costs and suppress freedom of thought, with Eleanor Ferguson’s cage-framed set subtly nodding to this ongoing dismantling. Holt infuriates the eye as a humorless, willfully ignorant, and blindingly literal head. “Is this a little?” Jay asks when he’s first introduced to Dean’s wild thinking. “A little of what?” Dean asks innocently. Events escalate when Jay stops clinging to reason and starts playing dirty, and Michael plays him as a desperate man with nothing left to lose.

Foley’s absurdly funny premise would also serve as another cultural launching pad to show Dean’s ignorance. This type of conspiracy theorist, who makes up data and calls it facts, is not limited to the topic. But then we wouldn’t get director Pierce Black’s delicious between-the-scenes moments where the two men scream and claw at each other, necks tense and elbows extended. Two dinosaurs ready to cuddle.

Reality bends as the story moves to its logical extreme, where the drama stretches a bit. There are only so many ways men can yell at each other and circle the office menacingly. But the show never loses its dark comedic bite or its sharp claws. Foley’s writing is a dotted delight and a searing indictment of the way our world works.