PUNCHING OUT

Workplace tragi-comedy ‘Reptile Logic’ slithers onstage at Vintage Theatre

BY TONI TRESCA

It was a labor dispute that first sparked the idea for the award-winning new play from Denver-based writer Matt Wexler. While he was attending school at the University of Colorado in the early 2000s, Wexler worked at a corporate big-box warehouse store in a nearby town where he witnessed the coordinated harassment of a coworker who dared to inquire about unionizing.

“She asked the question innocently enough … [but] for the next two months, before she was forced to quit, I saw her get harassed, bullied, joked on, and [management] changed her schedule,” he says. “I knew a story was there; I just didn’t know how to write it yet.”

Wexler was troubled by the episode, which would stick with him over the next two decades. It wasn’t until the height of the pandemic in 2020, when the playwright had time off from teaching stand-up at the Denver Improv, that he decided to revisit the experience. The result would become Reptile Logic: A Corporate Dismemberment, which had its world premiere performance on July 28 at Aurora’s Vintage Theatre.

“It took me about six months to write the first draft of Reptile Logic,” Wexler says of the play running through Aug. 13. “The fact that this is a play makes it different from writing movies or TV scripts. You still need some resources, but they are not as vast as in those projects; with plays, you can produce them yourself with a team you trust.”

Since penning the script for Reptile Logic, billed as an “exploitative tragedy wrapped in the veil of a workplace comedy,” Wexler’s work has received writing awards from Script Awards Los Angeles, Oxford Scripts and a number of other organizations across the country.

“The subject matter is important and becomes more relevant every day,” says director and producer Mike Langworthy. “Reptile Logic deals with how corporate America is increasingly squeezing the individual and what that does to people’s psyches. There are three different levels of employees in the play. Each one finds themselves in extremis because of an industrial accident that causes a work stoppage, threatening the livelihoods of all three characters in the play.”

‘ANIMALISTIC SURVIVAL’

When a faceless megacorporation is confronted with a list of demands from its employees, the plant manager, Mike Stevens (Colin Martin), and his obedient assistant, Iris (Corinne Landy), go to war with an ex-con spokeswoman, Jacky (Gin Walker). The idea behind the play’s title, Reptile Logic: A Corporate Dismemberment, is that our work environments frequently transform decent, logical people into reptilian-like creatures fighting for survival.

“I want audiences to think about the positions that businesses put [employees] in,” Wexler says. “When you mess with people’s jobs, you revert them to a sense of animalistic survival. Seeing people act [like animals] is a little bit funny but [it’s] also pretty alarming that this has become normalized behavior in the office. Reptile Logic may not be as glamorous as the new Transformers or Barbie, but this real-life workplace story is still important.”

To give local audiences the opportunity to see this nationally recognized production first with a Colorado-centric cast and crew, Wexler is renting the Bond-Trimble Theatre from Vintage and producing the play through his company, The Wounded Cobra Theatre. The Denver creative team behind Reptile Logic includes directorproducer Langworthy, writer-producer Wexler, producer KQ and production stage manager-assistant director Rachael Lessard.

“When I was putting together a crew, I thought about who I trust around town,” Wexler says. “I knew Mike from stand-up circles in Denver and was struck by his comedy and extensive career as a writer. We met at a booth at Sam’s No. 3, and I asked him if he wanted to direct this. After reading the script, he said yes. Mike brought KQ on the project, who put us in touch with tech people and suggested we look into booking space at Vintage Theatre.”

Langworthy was struck by the play’s contemporary themes, as organized union workers in various industries strike for better working conditions. He compares the writing style to that of Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller.

“As I read Reptile Logic, it seemed to tap into the great American playwriting tradition of portraying the underbelly of modern society,” Langworthy says. “[It] strips away the sophistication that many plays put on in order to portray working-class people in complex relationships in a very direct way.”

ON STAGE: ‘Reptile Logic: A Corporate Dismemberment’ by The Wounded Cobra Theatre. Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. through Aug. 13. Vintage Theatre, 1468 Dayton St., Aurora. $30