“We can talk about the ways in which America as a country functions as a predator – meaning that the engine of America preys on everyone, and it is only selective in the type of bloodsucking that it does.” – Alicia Garza*

Is Amy Herzog’s BELLEVILLE – in which a young married couple (played by Anna Camp and Thomas Sadoski) struggle to convey to a Pasadena Playhouse audience what it is about themselves that might be interesting or attractive or of value – a wicked satire on American arrogance, selfishness, and depredation? Mesmerized by how much damage they can inflict on one another – and comically clueless about their irresponsibility and waste – the fact that Abby and Zack are reasonably nice, college-educated, and politically liberal (living as they do in the multicultural, east Paris neighborhood of the title) is Herzog’s sly twist on this latest iteration of the not-so-beautiful American, leaving a mess for the world to clean up.

BELLEVILLE, through May 13.

PASADENA PLAYHOUSE, 39 South El Molino Avenue, downtown Pasadena.

pasadenaplayhouse.org/belleville

*Aaron Hicklin, “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution,” conversation with Alicia Garza and Asia Kate Dillon, Out, May 2018, 71.

Anna Camp and Thomas Sadoski in Belleville. Photograph by Philicia Endelman.