The Most Deserving

The Most Deserving, by Catherine Trieschmann, receives its world premiere by the Denver Center Theatre Company (at the Ricketson Theatre through November 17), but I'm not sure why. It's described thusly in DCTC promotional material:

A small town arts council has $20,000 to award to a local artist with an “under-represented American voice.” Should they choose the teacher/painter of modest talent or the self-taught artist who creates religious figures out of trash? This comedy explores how gossip, politics and opinions of art can decide who is the most deserving.

Comedy is a marvelous form for social commentary, which one hopes The Most Deserving might be. At least, that's what I and Theatre Companion hoped, but while that appeared to be what the first act was setting up, the second act descended into a farce, in which almost all the characters abandoned correspondence to real human motivation and emotion and instead just acted as silly as possible. Granted, it was funny, but not as funny as a truly dedicated farce can be. 

The playwright's choice to move into a farce also destroyed any possibility of social commentary. For example, the play builds to a vote on the recipient of the $20,000 award; however, by the time the vote comes, the characters' plausibility has been so degraded that their votes are incomprehensible. The actors all handed in competent performances and demonstrated good sense for comic timing; the evening passed quickly and was entertaining; but in the end, the play has no point.

Why? This is the United States of America, with more MFA programs and budding playwrights than I can count. Not very many new works get produced, relatively speaking. Is this the best the DCTC could find? Live theater is not only expensive to attend, it's expensive to produce. I wish the DCTC had found a play which aimed to do more than merely make a couple hours pass by.