FringeNYC 2013: Off The Desk (Tales of a Mediocre Stockbroker)

Review by Judith Jarosz · August 10, 2013

Why do we need to hear another person’s sad journey through the challenges of picking a career that he wasn’t really interested in, getting sucked into a work schedule that wrecks a serious relationship, blowing LOTS of money on various addictive substances and strippers and almost killing himself? Because Chris Foley is funny…that’s’ why.

Foley is the writer and sole performer in this piece, Off The Desk (Tales of a Mediocre Stockbroker) based on his own life, and while much of the material is about grim choices made in life, there is always something to be learned from someone who has gone through the trenches and come out alive and on a new and positive path. But the writing must be brisk, the timing crisp, and the performer likable. Foley hits all of these marks as he unfolds twenty some years of his life from college onward.

Like many people Foley makes a choice to follow a career path that holds hope for money and success, while his heart is never quite in it. Graduating from an Ivy League school (Dartmouth) he chooses the investment world over less stable artistic choices and begins to regret it almost immediately. Anyone who has had even a brief brush with that world can relate to the sinking feeling the first time you lay eyes on that entire floor of human drones crammed into four foot cubicles with no privacy as far as the eye can see. As he moves from one reasonably successful yet unremarkable job to the next, Foley amuses himself with some of his fellow drones and we meet creepy bosses who seem obsessed with the word and world of “pussy,” a coworker with a speech impediment, who can’t pronounce the “f” sound (“Buck you, Boley”) and Vinnie, a very cool older guy who seems to cut through the crap and give some solid worldly advice.

What keeps this show from being depressing is that it moves along without wallowing and has things in it that every human being can relate to in one way or another. Foley keeps the humor in all of it. Director Diana Basmajian breaks up the monologues with some raucous music and has Foley dancing through the tiny theater space at times. You like him, you’re rooting for him. When he accidently spends $8000 on strippers and booze in one night on what turns out to be the company credit card, you cringe for him. When he bets thousands of dollars with his boss and fellow drones that he can lose 70 pounds by the holiday, then triumphantly does, you feel his victory. He’s not a corporate asshole, but more like the guy next door who made some bad choices but you would still have a beer with him, only now he would be having a seltzer. Both Foley and the economy lose their way in the new millennium. Along the way his fiancée leaves him and he develops major addictions leading to some really serious health issues. When he gets booted from one more job, Foley has an epiphany, and starts to follow his bliss. He now pursues performing, and aren’t we all lucky for that? I hear his remaining shows are sold out. I would try and get in anyway.