This is Christopher Tutor’s first-time effort as a playwright and it shows. Lacking rhythm, momentum or anything resembling a point, this workplace comedy also comes saddled with one of the worst titles in recent memory. I’m not even sure what the phrase “mass mind rape” means, but I suspect it’s something akin to the experience I had watching this play. It’s one thing to depict corporate drudgery, it’s quite another to force your audience to endure it as well. The thinly sketched storyline takes place in a generic corporation where the work-a-day grind and petty office grievances drain the life and zest from its employees. It’s hard to work up any sympathy for the main characters who are white boys with college degrees and therefore not exactly in a position to complain about their career prospects. Loaded with clunky devices—quotes from Nine Inch Nails and Aristotle flash on the wall between scenes—the play never builds towards a cohesive idea or purpose, though I’m hesitant to lay all the blame on Tutor. Many first-time efforts are pretty bad. And who knows, the guy might improve with a writing class or two under his belt. The real culprits are C’est La Vie Drama and director Heidi Peterson, who should have known better and passed on this waste of time and energy from the get-go. (Nina Metz)
