Review: ‘Nickel and Dimed’ captures grim reality of working poor

The real-life people depicted in “Nickel and Dimed” at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre aren’t this docudrama’s target audience — those people couldn’t afford even the modest $25 ticket. Rather, Joan Holden’s stage adaptation of journalist Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2001 bestseller about America’s working poor is aimed squarely at educating the more fortunate among us in the realities of trying to get by on the income from low-wage service jobs.

In the social experiment depicted in both the book and play, Ehrenreich posed as an unskilled worker in three cities to see if such jobs (paying in the $6–$7 range at the time) provided enough for basic food, housing, and transportation, without recourse to welfare, food stamps or charity.

Richard Kilroy’s staging features Zachary Barton as the slightly fictionalized narrator Barbara, with five actors in multiple roles portraying the various impoverished co-workers and oppressive bosses she encounters during her research. Only Carmen Lezeth Suarez and Kathleen Ingle, however, go beyond recognizable types to credible characters.

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Nevertheless, scenes faithfully excerpted in compelling detail from Ehrenreich’s book illustrate how the economic deck is stacked against the faceless workforce that subsidizes affluence by scrubbing toilets, slinging hash, cleaning up after nursing care residents and stocking the racks at big box retailers.

What remedies might be practical or even possible are open for debate, but not the grim reality of conditions that have only worsened since the Clinton era’s comparative economic prosperity, as increasing numbers of the middle class are forced into dead-end minimum wage jobs — if they can get them.

As social criticism, therefore, “Nickel and Dimed” has lost none of its importance or urgency. That being said, when considered on its theatrical merits there’s very little about the stage adaptation that can’t be found in the more complete and better written book.

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“Nickel and Dimed,” The Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends August 25. $25. (323) 960-5770 or www.plays411.net/nickelanddimed. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

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