Kpfa - Bay Area Theater

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Gloria” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at ACT’s Strand theatre through April 12, 2020. ACT website Text of review (minus actuality) Sitting in a cubicle in an office, no matter how great the job or its prospects, can be a debilitating experience. At last that’s the way playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins saw his brief time working at the fabled New Yorker magazine several years ago.   It’s also true that TV shows like The Office, in particular, or, of course, several dozen other sitcoms over the years, have covered cubicle life more fully than any two hour play ever could, which is why Jacobs-Jenkins goes so much deeper in the funny and shocking “Gloria,” a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2014, now a production at ACT’s Strand Theatre through April 12th.   Eric Ting, director of the production   Gloria is one of those plays takes a sudden turn at the end of Act One, an event for which there seems to be no foreshadowing, so it’s a little hard to talk about themes except in the