This Is Not America – Pleasance Courtyard ★★★

The American Dream has always depended on performance. Success is not simply achieved; it is displayed. Wealth must be seen, power projected, masculinity continually asserted. Philip Stokes’ This Is Not America understands that instinctively. Framed around the questioning of three Italian-American brothers following the discovery of a dead body in Brooklyn, the play gradually reveals itself as something less interested in crime than in the myths men build around themselves. Stokes structures the piece around a series of competing monologues, allowing each character to establish his own version of events before the narrative begins to pull those stories apart. There is Cassius, the aspiring actor, all confidence and self-belief. There is Salvatore, whose boyish innocence initially marks him out as the decent one. There is Rocco, a rat-a-tat street hoodlum, forever talking and posturing his way through life. Then there is Paulie, the self-proclaimed devil worshipper whose influence…