Greed and wit reign supreme in Mark Roberts’ dark vision of Broadway TV

In a 2012 interview with Backstage, playwright Mark Roberts alleges that Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre approached him after a performance of his play Couples Counseling Killed Katie and said, “If nobody has made you rich writing television, I’d like to be that guy.” Roberts did indeed make it big in television, going on to executive-produce Two and a Half Men and create CBS’s Mike and Molly (the latter of which was just renewed for a fifth season). Yet judging by the incredibly sinister light in which Roberts casts the world of broadcast television in his latest play, Enter at Forest Lawn (presented by The Amoralists as part of The Gyre, their summer residency at Walkerspace “exploring man’s vicious cycles”), this was something of a Faustian offer. I cannot fathom an amount of money large enough to make me want to spend several years of my life with the deformed hell-creatures that inhabit Roberts’ Boschian vision of Burbank. Jack Story (playwright Roberts) is the writer and executive producer of the most popular sitcom on television, which is about to sell into syndication for $2 million an episode. Unfortunately, the actor who plays rascally Uncle Danny has a serious problem with cocaine and hookers. (This is sounding eerily familiar.) Stanley (David Lanson) thinks Uncle Danny is in no position to be put in front of a live studio audience and cameras, but Jack is undeterred. He sends his mousy assistant, Jessica (Sarah Lemp), to Uncle Danny’s drug den in the Chateau Marmont to get him to sign the syndication papers. Meanwhile, the ruthlessly cunning Marla (Anna Stromberg playing a dominatrix in a power suit) wants Jack to hire her nephew Clinton (Matthew Pilieci), a writer and war veteran with a hook for a hand. In a brisk 70 minutes, things go from disgusting to weird to deadly in this darker-than-dark backstage comedy.