Andy Sandberg’s Affluenza will have been written long before recent allegations involving Cornell University dominated headlines, but it is reportedly inspired by another high-profile American legal defence. Launching the new Mainstage Season at Riverside Studios, and the first of three world premieres, Affluenza is a perplexing and often incoherent examination of the role wealth and privilege play within the criminal justice system.
Set in a luxurious modern home in the Hamptons, brought vividly to life by Charlie Corcoran’s gorgeous two-storey set, the story centres on sixteen-year-old Dylan Marcus, who was drunk behind the wheel when a head-on collision left several innocent people dead or seriously injured. “Can money solve this?” asks Donald Sage Mackay’s odious Dennis while interrogating Brad (Rupert Young), the hot-shot lawyer flown in to defend his son.
The first act goes to great lengths to establish its characters and moral conflicts. Dylan is unrepentant, insisting that “it was an accident”; his parents are determined to blame anyone but their son; and the victims’ families find themselves torn between accepting financial compensation and pursuing justice.
Brad, too, is forced to confront the ethics of defending a clearly guilty client. A lengthy debate with his girlfriend eventually leads him to the concept of “affluenza” as a legal defence: that Dylan has been raised in such extreme wealth and privilege that he cannot reasonably be expected to distinguish right from wrong.
There are so many interesting ideas at play here, and any number of compelling directions in which the characters and story might develop. Instead of building on these carefully established foundations, however, the audience finds itself watching what feels like an entirely different play after the interval. I’m reluctant to reveal too much, partly because it would constitute a major spoiler and partly because I’m not entirely convinced it would be believed.
What I will say is that Rupert Young is now playing Dylan, while Noah Schnapp, whose stage debut has been a major focus of the production’s publicity despite his relatively limited stage time, is now playing Todd, Dylan’s son. There is an attempt in the final scene to bring the narrative full circle, but it feels ham-fisted and sits awkwardly alongside the wholesale abandonment of earlier storylines and character arcs.
It’s not just the script that lets Affluenza down. The production is beset with technical issues, chief among them the sound design. Whatever is being done with the microphones simply isn’t working. The cast frequently sound like robotic AI versions of themselves, when they can be heard at all. Every footstep stage right lands with a deafening thud, while a Chinese takeaway being unpacked in the same area somehow overwhelms the auditorium, despite the audience being able to see that the cartons are empty.
Rupert Young proves to be the production’s strongest asset, delivering convincing and engaging work both as the conflicted lawyer and the older Dylan, a man leading an unfulfilled life while remaining largely unpunished for his actions. Noah Schnapp gives an admirable performance despite his limited stage time. In one scene as Todd, there is a glimpse of a far more interesting play, one that explores a young man burdened by the sins of his father, but the moment passes before the idea can be meaningfully explored.
The remainder of the cast struggle to make a lasting impression. Whether that is a consequence of the extensive multi-rolling or the limitations of the script itself is difficult to determine, but few are given an opportunity to truly shine. As the evening progresses, the sense of confusion increasingly extends beyond the characters and into the auditorium itself.
Affluenza begins with a provocative premise and an intriguing moral question, but ultimately loses confidence in the very story it sets out to tell. The first act lays the groundwork for a compelling examination of privilege, accountability and justice, only for the second to abandon much of that promise in favour of baffling narrative choices that undermine both its themes and its characters. A fascinating play seems to be buried somewhere inside Affluenza, but this production never quite finds it.
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