The Squirrels (Robert Askins)
Often if I think I’ll like something, especially a play, I’ll delay reading it, because I know it will be easy to convince myself to read it if I ever want to. That’s why despite being excited to read Robert Askins The Squirrels for over a year now I didn’t do so until today.
It’s a comedy. It’s silly. It’s dramatic. It’s about anthropomorphized animals. It’s a satire about something I care about! It really has everything going for it.
But, much like Eureka Day from earlier this week I was left wanting. I don’t fully know why. Maybe I’ll learn to love it later.
It doesn’t help that it’s billed as a satire about wealth inequality, and it’s really not. It is a proper (and unexpected) epic, following two battling factions, betrayal, and the danger of faltering power, or seeking power. As a result it’s not just “one” thing, but it’s clearly more a story about race relations (and other forms of tribalism) than it is about wealth inequality.
I suppose we should get to something as banal as the plot before thinking about the themes.
Introduced by a “Cartoon Scientist” we’re introduced to some squirrels in a maple tree. Sciurus once was the greatest squirrel in the tree, maybe he still is, but he’s getting older, his mind is getting more feeble, and he’s not feeling as adored as he once was. He’s also a grey squirrel carrying a lot of prejudice towards the fox squirrels, who he thinks are lower-class, dirty, and lazy.
His daughter and her fox squirrel friend plead for him to give up some of his massive stores of nuts to help the other squirrels through the winter. His adopted and selfish fox squirrel adopted daughter and a shifty conman out to make his nut persuade him that they’re trying to take advantage of him. What follows is an epic squirrel war for survival and relevance that leaves many dead (and gruesomely injured.)
It’s hysterical. Especially in a world where we’ve been beating up on the intelligence of the wealthy for a year, the wealthy and the “powerful” come across as scared and desperate to retain standing. The cycle of mistrust and violence is portrayed powerfully, decried, then indulged in by those who decry it. It gets a little too silly at times, many words are substituted for others and I got a little tired of it, but if you like the gravitas of Succession and the humor of The Play That Goes Wrong you’re going to find something special in this play. It’s Squirrel King Lear, and the world is better off for it.
Still, there is something missing, and I have no idea what it is. I’d love to realize this play, or to see it, but I can’t say for all of its successes that it gets me excited, at least not yet. If at the end of the year this is the best play I’ve read, I’ll be a little disappointed.
As a Producer
More than any other play I’ve read this year (heh,) this fits the Pronoia mold perfectly. It’s my style of humor and the satire does an excellent job of making you think and look at things. It’s definitely the sort of show I’d produce, or insist others produce.
As a Designer
Dear lord, is this a designer’s dream. Obviously costumes has a lot to do: everyone is a squirrel, what does a cartoon scientist look like, do we want to rip squirrel testicles off; but scenery can either build a beautiful tree for the squirrels to play in, or seek to make something more like our own; the almost melodramatic stakes gives lighting and sound as much to indulge as the director will allow. It’s a playground of opportunity.
As a Writer
I’ve never tried to write a proper Juvenalian satire, something with big stakes and a lot to say about the world. Partly it’s because I most enjoy smaller stories, and that sort of satire tends to take things to epic proportions (as seen here,) and partly it’s because I don’t have a lot to say. I do have a few ideas that I think could reach the energy found here, but mostly I admire the vision to see this project through and the courage to mix the stupid and profound in such a magical way.
