GS-14, which returns for the third year in a row to the Capital Fringe Festival, is a comedy centered around a mid-level government manager who “decides to ignore all rules as to get the job done.” DCist hasn’t reviewed the play before, but other critiques out there have poked plenty of holes at Jason Ford’s storyline and it doesn’t seem like anything has changed.
Blowhard supervisor Hank (Ben Fisler) no longer cares about convention; his only interest is in getting his team’s “life-saving” software project done, no matter what bureaucratic rules he must bend. However, it is difficult to buy that this two-dimensional and unredeeming character has an altruistic motive to his madness. Hank works hard to ensure his team doesn’t lose the project to another team by sending an immature GS-7 to meet with an executive to convince him to let them keep it. It seems that any group would get on better than Hank’s crackpot team of a stuffed-shirt, a cross-dresser, a lazy person and the entry level employee who balks at the notion that she shouldn’t wear a T-shirt and flip flops to work. Three of the four have filed union grievances against their insufferable boss, and besides, everyone knows that contractors would be doing all the real work anyway. And I might more buy Hank as a “manager on the move” (and someone in the position to make wardrobe suggestions to others) were he not wearing top-siders, a drab button-down shirt and double-pleated khakis. It’s the type of easy but oxymoronic caricature the play largely relies on to sell itself.
If anyone were to be fired from their government job — and as the play often jokes about, this is a rare proposition — it would not be the lazy guy, but Hank’s character himself for grossly unacceptable workplace behavior. The play strays a bit too far from realism for this reviewer who, just like the playwright, has spent his fair share of years on the General Schedule. Yet in this government town, a play poking fun at the area’s largest employer is going to draw an audience. The full crowd at the Spooky Universe theater laughed frequently and seemed to genuinely enjoy the play. It hits a humorous nerve on occasion, as Hank calculates how many American’s tax returns go to paying the salary of the charge he’s trying to get fired, or at his suggestion to ask 100 random taxpayers whether they want to keep the guy.
And hey, there’s a cross-dresser. He’s hired out of college to write code, without qualifications, because he’s weird, and Hank will be able to pay him little and make him work overnights so no one will see him. The cross-dresser believes in his principles, but not enough that he’s willing to go to a colleague’s weekend party because he doesn’t know how people will react to him. It’s just another piece of GS-14 that generates some laughs, but is more likely to generate eye rolling about the implausible absurdity of it all.
GS-14 has one performance left on July 24. Tickets are available online.
