Writer: Jonathan Caren
Music: Ben Harper and CJ Harper
Additional Music and Lyrics: Khalil Madovi
Director: Daniel Bailey
The socioeconomic disparity between members of the same family can be a powerful driver for storytelling. In Jonathan Caren’s Hit Machine, successful record producer Wes (Josh Radnor) is playing host to his little brother, Noah Galvin’s Alex, in his eight-bedroom LA mansion. Alex is a struggling artist himself, in town for a meeting with a possible new manager – but he also wants Wes to help to support his mother, who is struggling after her ex-husband, the brothers’ abusive father, stopped paying alimony.
And yet, despite Wes’s air of financial opulence, it is mostly a front, a form of social marketing that requires someone at his level to project success. Wes is gambling everything on a new signing to his record label. Khala Madovi’s Defy the Leader has been caught in a violent confrontation in a video that is going viral – and Wes is keen to exploit the publicity to leverage the artist’s career.
Caren’s play starts off in an amusing register, mining the disparity between the brothers. Galvin, in particular, has fun with the lightness of his character, needling his brother in the same way he did when they were kids, yet yearning for that same connection as adults. It is that need for validation that drives the characters’ relationship as the play progresses. Radnor has a tougher job as the more stoic sibling, but he helps to portray a believable sense of brotherly tension and love in his work with Galvin.
It is Madovi’s introduction that helps bring the brothers’ differences into relief. Subtle hints at how Wes seeks to funnel his Black artists into particular musical routes could perhaps be sharper. As Madovi’s Defy expresses a wish to infuse his sound with gospel and jazz, Wes’s insistence that he instead lean into a grittier sound illustrates how the older brother has abandoned musical honesty and originality for a production line of homogeneity. Ben Harper and CJ Harper’s music, supplemented with contributions from Madovi, helps to illustrate how both Alex and Defy share a creative vision that feels far more vital and inspirational than anything Radnor’s character has to offer.
The musical differences between the brothers do eventually mirror their own familial relationship, especially as long-held grievances over how each sibling reacted to their father’s abusive actions play out. It is this part of the play that suffers the most from Caren keeping the work to a single 75-minute act. The impact of childhood actions and reactions clearly remains with both characters into adulthood, although the exploration of that impact feels somewhat slight. While the lack of heavy-handedness is appreciated, it also hollows out part of the piece’s emotional core.
Still, Radnor and Galvin work well together to fill those gaps, delivering honest portrayals of two damaged souls struggling to regain something long since lost. Hit Machine feels like a chamber piece that is yearning to be something larger and deeper than its current form can contain.
Runs until 15 August 2026
