Man cannot be evil in a vacuum. Although the Bernie Madoff envisaged by Deborah Margolin in her unmistakably titled Imagining Madoff is sufficiently intriguing to warrant a one-man production, the show boasts all of three characters. The play’s abstract construction dilutes the viewer’s terrifying stare into the fantasia of a noted criminal’s mind, yet it provides the necessary context to demonstrate that, pathology aside, what made Madoff vile is the hurt he knowingly caused his unsuspecting clients and disgraced colleagues. Accordingly, the Jewish Ensemble Theatre’s Midwest premiere, directed by Yolanda Fleischer, features a haunting turn by B.J. Love as the real-life Ponzi-scheming villain, but the completeness of its success is in extending its reach to show the ease of his ice-cold deception at work.
The coup of the production is Love’s gripping monologues as an incarcerated Bernie, who shrugs off his own admitted soft-spoken demeanor and candidly recounts and marvels at his treachery to an unseen biographer. The actor’s matter-of-fact relationship to the material makes for a startling viewer experience, in which this man figuratively pulls back his face to reveal the cunning shark-like monster beneath. Despite some tender musing on his wife’s pleasure at being surrounded by nice things, Margolin’s Bernie created an empire of fraud less for the end than the means, the incredible high of taking and taking — indeed, of having money seemingly thrust at him — and getting away with it. The character’s twisted moral code and tendency to see sadness as some kind of personal affront are dually abhorrent and riveting; with Margolin’s text and Love’s terrific work, it’s easy and harrowing to imagine this Madoff.
Additional context comes from a segregated corner of the stage, as a secretary at the firm (Sandra Birch) emotionally testifies before the Securities and Exchange Commission. Her assertions, some based on actual comments by one (or more) of the real-life Madoff’s employees, both explain the extent of the need-to-know secrecy of the firm’s operations and show the shame of an underling made complicit by association. Set and lighting designer Donald Robert Fox places her disgrace before an enormous American flag, set off from the pervasive towering books that initiate a theme of vertical bars. Costume designer Christa Koerner brings out the exquisite tailoring of expensive business dress, and properties by Diane Ulseth similarly evoke financially comfortable surroundings. In a nice bit of contrast, the production is bookended by sound designer Hank Bennett’s playlist of wealth-obsessed songs, from escapist fantasies of the Depression to more dolla-dolla-bills showmanship equating success in the music business with indulgent riches; the tongue-in-cheek crowing about wealth is in direct opposition to our societal taboo of actually talking about money in specific terms. Importantly, as Birch’s evocative performance suggests, such reluctance was crucial to Madoff’s swindling success; she let the implication of financial security assuage her specific unanswerable questions, and ultimately, so did everyone else.
Complementing Love’s soliloquies and Birch’s pitiable interludes is the narrative thrust of the story, a single long conversation that passes between Bernie and eventual client Solomon Galkin (Robert Grossman). In a bit of playwriting drama, the character was initially an actual high-profile victim of Madoff’s, but was changed after the man threatened litigation against Margolin. Still, the Holocaust survivor and world-renowned writer/theologian portrayed here so strongly resembles the irreproachable quality of the original, he might as well be named Please-Elie-Wiesel-Don’t-Sue. In Solomon’s study, the men embark on a discourse on topics including baseball, their differing relationships to Judaism, the nature of sexual desire, and the good work Bernie is perceived to be doing in managing faith-based foundations and protecting aging Jews’ retirement assets. Grossman’s studied performance is wonderfully wise and sincere, providing the perfect foil for the quiet camaraderie and skillful evasion of Bernie the businessman-thief, a diabolical reversal from his private self. To pit such a forgiving and uplifting spirit against this pure soullessness becomes the ultimate test, as Bernie quietly recoils upon being found worthy by such a good man.
With its complex structure, symbolic interchanges, and intelligent discourse, the play feels somewhat longer than its approximately one hundred uninterrupted minutes; however, this may be an effect of sharing close quarters with such a detestable personality, however delicious the portrayal. For viewers willing to withstand the worst of human intentions, this Imagining Madoff uses Love’s bleak character study to propel its painful exploration of the reverberating effects of one man’s colossal wrongs, and each complements the other to make a disheartening, loathsome, and ultimately comprehensible whole.