Norman Bell, a former soldier in the finance trenches, takes us “inside the heart of the mortgage meltdown” in his solo show. Of Bell’s Sept. run, our Margaret Friedman said: “Norman Bell’s real-life experience as a mortgage-loan officer puts him ahead of the pack of artists tackling the subject of the economic meltdown. It also gives his work an insider authenticity rare in theme-based material written by mere playwrights. This guy knows cubicle life: the pinch of the telemarketer’s headset, the seductive croon of the top closer’s phone pitch, the agony of getting hung up on a hundred times in a row, and the ecstasy of that 101st call, the ‘live one.’ In this one-man show, Bell summons the bodies and/or spirits of 11 characters caught up in the mortgage meltdown, following them from the heights of 2005 (the year Bell worked in the industry) to the debased present. Main character John Bartlett starts as a lowly junior loan officer (or J-Lo), then steadily scales the ranks of the no-money-down mortgage scam, staying hydrated on ‘helping poor people share the American Dream’–flavored Kool-Aid. While it is fun and funny watching him get high on the money, power, and attitude, a vulnerable humanity emerges in his conversations with the guileless dreamers who are his clients. Bell dramatizes the seductive undercurrent of the gigantic hoodwink, the ‘You know you want it and the only thing standing between you and it is you’ biz-babble.”

Fri., Oct. 16, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., Oct. 17, 7:30 p.m., 2009