Lindsay Joelle's Script for The Garbologists
Is a Fresh and Modern Dumpster Dive,
with Plenty of Treasure at the Bottom

Friday night was the first time that I have visited the amazing Golden Belt Campus for the Arts at 800 Taylor St., near downtown Durham, NC. The warm night was made lively by families enjoying craft beer, pizza, karoke, and ice cream on the patios of this renovated factory complex. For those who have not visited before, the new Mettlesome Theater faces Taylor St., and is located next to the Urban Tails Veterinary Hospital.

This is where the Bulldog Ensemble Theater is premiering Lindsay Joelle's dramedy The Garbologists, an 80-minute play that explores the quest for common ground between people with vastly different backgrounds.

The Garbologists relies on the "buddy comedy" formula for its success. Two sanitation workers, Marlowe and Danny, are thrown together by circumstance and have to work out their differences. And in the end, they discover that they have more in common than they thought. But even though the formula is old, Lindsay Joelle's script is a fresh and modern dumpster dive, with plenty of treasure at the bottom.

On Chicago native Lindsay Joelle's website (http://www.lindsayjoelle.com/), the playwright speaks about how her writing explores the rituals, jargon, and humor of micro-communities across America. Her plays "spotlight voices not usually heard in American theater" -- stories of people who are often overlooked by society at large.

The Garbologists stars Lauren Foster-Lee and Sean Brosnahan as Marlowe and Danny (photo by Erin Bell for Bull City Photography)

In an April 2022 interview by Toby Tabachnick in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, Joelle talks about how the inspiration for The Garbologists came when she met a sanitation worker, the husband of a friend, during a weekend getaway. "I found that I had a lot of preconceptions that were just off-target about who's drawn to this career and what this career is like," says Joelle.

Merriam-Webster defines garbology as "the study of modern culture through the analysis of what is thrown away as garbage." William Rathje, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, is widely regarded as the person who first started the study of garbage in 1973 with The Garbage Project. Rathje and his students excavated and catalogued the trash in more than 15 landfills, resulting in several books, including Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage, claiming that trash gives garbologists a clearer understanding of culture than surveys or interviews.

Danny (played by local chameleon Sean A. Brosnahan) is a nine-year veteran New York Department of Sanitation worker who is not hesitant to share his "garbological knowledge" with his newbie partner, Marlowe (played by Lauren Foster-Lee). Danny, a brash blue-collar white guy from Staten Island, likes to put on a show with his lame jokes and never-ending anecdotes. But amidst the chatter is actual sage advice about how an experienced garbage man knows how to "read the bags" and determine all kinds of interesting information about what's happening in the neighborhood.

Marlowe, a Black, Ivy League-educated art history major, is resentful of Danny's mansplaining and tells him to stick to his job of driving, while she does the work on the street of loading the trash bags into the compactor. One morning she discovers some interesting "mongo" -- sanitation slang for treasure salvaged from the trash. It's a book of botanical illustrations that might possibly be valuable, and she questions the ethics of keeping valuable items they find on their route. Meanwhile, Danny finds an entire box of dildos, resulting in some exquisitely lame jokes, soliciting chuckles from the audience.

Sean Brosnahan and Lauren Foster-Lee star as Danny and Marlowe in The Garbologists (photo by Erin Bell for Bull City Photography)

The unfolding of Marlowe and Danny's friendship happens over a series of scenes that take place over the weeks that they work together. The know-it-all Danny and the chip-on-her-shoulder Marlowe slowly become more sympathetic with each other as we find out about Danny's troubled marriage and Marlowe's kid with cancer.

Marshall Botvinick's strong direction and the actors' skilled performances are what make this play so enjoyable. But the venue is not the best location, acoustically. With no acoustic panels and a strong HVAC hum, some of the dialogue was hard to understand -- on the second row. I'm convinced that both Brosnahan and Foster-Lee's voices and enunciation are strong, and Botvinick blocks the actors to aim their faces downstage. But Rule #1 in comedy is for the punchline to be heard, which contributed to a rather quiet audience reaction to the humorous portions of the script.

Josh W. Martin and Abigail Kuchar's clever scenic design features the cab of a garbage truck, a compactor, and black plastic garbage bags, discarded mattresses, and other detritus, piled high. Lighting designer Erin Bell does a great job suggesting the time changes, and sound designer Faith Abi Haydar creates a layered soundscape suggesting the location changes. Unfortunately, audio playback from a single backstage speaker seemed muffled. Being a new theater space, there's anticipation that Mettlesome will improve their acoustic situation in the future. (To donate find out how to the Mettlesome Theater, click here.)

One of the supporters of this production is the Manbites Dog Theater Fund, and on the bulldogdurham.org website, it says that this ensemble is inspired by the 30-year legacy of Manbites Dog Theater. We look forward to many years of adventurous material from Bulldog Ensemble Theater, whose slogan is "Of Durham, By Durham, and For Durham."

The Garbologists stars Lauren Foster-Lee and Sean Brosnahan as Marlowe and Danny (photo by Erin Bell for Bull City Photography)

Lindsay Joelle's THE GARBOLOGISTS (In Person at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Thursday and 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 5, 6, and 10-13), directed by Marshall Botvinick and starring Sean A. Brosnahan as Danny and Lauren Foster-Lee as Marlowe (Bulldog Ensemble Theater at the Mettlesome Theater at Golden Belt Campus for the Arts, 800 Taylor St. in Durham). THE PRESENTER: https://www.bulldogdurham.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/BulldogEnsembleTheater/. THE VENUE: https://thisismettlesome.com/, http://www.facebook.com/thisismettlesome, http://instagram.com/hellomettlesome, and https://twitter.com/hellomettlesome. DIRECTIONS: https://thisismettlesome.com/location. THE PLAY: http://www.lindsayjoelle.com/the-garbologists.html and https://newplayexchange.org/plays/85211/garbologists. THE PLAYWRIGHT: http://www.lindsayjoelle.com/, https://newplayexchange.org/users/881/lindsay-joelle, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1920353/, https://www.facebook.com/lindsay.joelle.5, and https://www.instagram.com/lindsayjoelle/. WARNING: This show contains adult language and themes. TICKETS: $20 ($10 students under 35 and $18 seniors 65+ and veterans), plus taxes and fees. Click here to buy tickets. INFORMATION: info@bulldogdurham.org. PLEASE DONATE TO: Bulldog Ensemble Theater and Mettlesome Theater.

WHAT: Triangle Review is a FREE weekly e-mail performing-arts and film newsletter, edited and published by Robert W. McDowell since April 2001.

TO SUBSCRIBE: To start your FREE subscription today, sign up in the subscription box at the beginning of this e-mail; or e-mail RobertM748@aol.com and type SUBSCRIBE-TR in the Subject: line. TO UNSUBSCRIBE: E-mail RobertM748@aol.com and type UNSUBSCRIBE-TR in the Subject: line.

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? E-mail all questions, comments, and Letters to the Editor to RobertM748@aol.com. For Letters to the Editor, please include a daytime telephone number in your e-mail.

COPYRIGHT: Editorial content in all formats © 2022 Triangle Review and the author of each article. Reproduction in any form without authorization of Triangle Review and the respective authors is prohibited. Triangle Review maintains an archive of past issues. To request copies of past articles and/or issues, e-mail RobertM748@aol.com.