Donogoo Theatre Review

Depending on one’s point of view, it can be either depressing or strangely comforting to realize that human foibles and societal issues we think of as fairly recent are actually not. Plays dating from bygone eras often bring home this point. And when it comes to playwrights whose works remain so relevant that they seem almost shockingly modern, rather than dated in any significant way, Jules Romains (1885-1972) is an excellent example (if not among the most famous). In 2010, the Mint Theater Company gave us an acclaimed production of Romains’ best-known work, Dr. Knock, a darkly comic lampoon of the medical profession. Now the company is presenting Donogoo, a more obscure Romains piece that also makes fun of crazy doctors (in an early scene) but moves on to cut a wide swathe as it satirizes academic fraud, real estate frenzy, the stock market, French imperialism (and imperialism in general), etc., etc.