Money Lab Reviews
"Don’t ever take a stock tip from a critic, but this one looks like a buy."
— Scott Brown, New York Magazine
“Untitled Theater Company’s workshop production of Money Lab explores one of the quintessential cocktail party dilemmas—the “flower vs. food” dichotomy, as its charismatic, fast-talking MC Clive Dobbs calls it. Is it possible to measure the relative worth to a society of essentials like food and water against the less tangible value of art? For the next highly enjoyable 90 minutes, the company turns the audience into a tiny economy with blue and red poker chips, the former representing artistic products and the latter standing in for rations and beverages...it could have been that Edward Einhorn and Patrice Miller’s hilarious, provocative dance to the economic jargon surrounding the subprime mortgage crisis, “Dead Cat Bounce,” influenced the subsequent auction of patronage for Miller to cause an “art bubble,” which even included the spontaneous creation of an arts foundation among audience members.
— James Hannaham, The Village Voice
“the appropriately charming Mick O’Brien emcees the evening...A dance piece set to media sound bites was mesmerizing, as was a Weimar-era cabaret act...Makes you wonder what would happen if the real economy were governed by the behavior of indie theatergoers.”
— Jenna Scherer, Time Out New York
“Fun, wacky and compelling in an innovative way...Money Lab with its tongue-in-cheek playfulness and grinning-in-your-face ironies is incredibly serious underneath all the fun. It is replete with humorous and entertaining economic games, but like all games, there is a hidden realm, especially if they are truthful in their design. Einhorn and Gyda Arber, the designers, have smilingly made 'the game' truthful as an object lesson. The audience is a part of the experiment. ”
— Carole DiTosti, blogcritics
“What was remarkable about Money Lab was that, despite the advance preparations I had made, the experience contained many elements I couldn’t have predicted. Money Lab proves that theatre and the market are equal in this attribute...My lasting impression of Money Lab was just how pervasive finances are both in life and in the theatre. While I had fun exploring these narratives, I must admit I left hungry for other narratives, both on stage and in the world at large. If the generosity demonstrated by the audience is any indication, there is tremendous potential for positive financial solutions so that we can worry less about how much money we’re gaining and losing and instead begin engaging with each other in different, more satisfying ways."
— James Kennedy, Cuturebot
“A brilliant potpourri of cabaret and Brechtian vaudeville.”
— Ward Morehouse III, Broadway After Dark
“ 'Journey to Yap' is an engrossing, thought-provoking multimedia experience about what wealth really means and what you might choose to do with it.”
— Natalie Sacks, charged.fm
“The entertainment and exercises are MC’d by an erudite and enjoyable Clive Dobbs as a kind of Alex Trebek who’s actually as smart as he thinks he is….Money Lab offers food for thought that isn’t free, but is indisposable.”
— Adam McGovern, fanchild
“At the end of Money Lab, the entertaining and enlightening “economic vaudeville” playing too briefly at The Brick Theater, one of the performers led us in a hymn to money. “Turn to page five of your tax returns please,” she said, and then delivered a melody that sounds ever so much like a psalm, though the lyrics are from the IRS. But Money Lab does not ask us to worship money. It encourages us to think about it. Conceived by Edward Einhorn, the artistic director of Untitled Theater Company No. 61, the show includes an inventive mix of offerings. ”
— Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater
“This is a great idea; catch it if you can, and hopefully it will return as a full fledged production.”
— Mark Savitt, Hi Drama