Junk

at Lincoln Center-Vivian Beaumont

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Junk, set over thirty years ago, is a play about how, while most of us weren't watching, money became the only thing of real value.

It’s 1985, hailed as "America's Alchemist," Robert Merkin's proclamation that "debt is an asset" has propelled him to dizzying heights. Zealously promoting his belief in the near-sacred infallibility of markets, he is trying to re-shape the world.

Junk is the story of Merkin's assault on American capitalism's holy of holies, the “deal of the decade,” his attempt to takeover an iconic American manufacturing company and, in the process, to change all the rules. What Merkin sets in motion is nothing less than a financial civil war, pitting magnates against workers, lawyers against journalists, and ultimately, pitting everyone against themselves.