Plunging His Pen Into the Dark Heart of 1980s Wall Street

"Sleight of hand" resonates with me. I wonder if Mr. Akhtar and other students and acolytes of the financial industry realize how intensely tens of millions loathe the financial industry? I suspect those affiliated with it are oblivious and that feeling is reinforced by my years in New York and listening to many many casual conversations.

Certainly today's situation of money for its own sake was born in those times. How little we were aware of the shaking down beginning with trickle down, and today it's brazen denial of reality---tax cuts for the wealthy will benefit the economy. Experts can't be trusted. Our own institutions -let alone media- can't be trusted. Junk an amazing, new look at the birth of Trump's America.

I greatly admired The Invisible Hand and Disgraced, so of course I have tickets for Junk. Note to The Times about the caption on the picture of Mr. Akhtar leaning against a column: there's no such building as the New York Federal Stock Exchange. He's evidently pictured at Federal Hall, which is across the street from the New York Stock Exchange.

My best friend since childhood is Jewish from a working-middle class family, has multiple university degrees, worked as an editor for the Harvard Business Review - and he is also outraged at the criminality of our Wall Street and Corporate elites - many of whom happen to be Jewish. Therefore, its shocking that an author who is allegedly exposing the turning of our nation into a post medieval society of 90+% serfs and a few % nobility is so naïve and cowardly as to give Jewish people who are a significant fraction of our criminal financial-corporate elites a special moral exemption for their role in this mass organized crime. By saying they are just more "innovative" and "harder working" (criminals and fraudsters) than the alluded to be majority of lazy Christians and "natives" of other races. This evidences an incredible ignorance of the fact that our 1% calculatingly elevates individual members of this and other sacred victim minorities, who can not be criticized for fear of accusations of racism or anti Semitism et al, to positions as public propagandists for the criminal rigging of our society. If idiot ideologues and economist bribe-takers from corporate criminals like Alan Greenspan, Lawrence Summers, Cohen and other Jewish corporate and financial institution leaders could have been appropriately questioned, criticized and jailed as opposed to being shielded by their assumed special minority "moral authority" the financial crash of 2008 probably would not have occurred.

The 'arbs' were the real outlaws of the '80s. They bought insider info & traded on it, pretty much with impunity. Boesky got caught, his imitators did not. There's a drama in that.

The story of Mr. Akhtar and his mounting success - continuing to blast forward even in the Time of Trump- is one of the many examples that make America already great. It's a story that is recognizably American. And it makes me feel proud to be an American; as a citizen of this country I am somehow a part of this brilliance. Go Akhtar!!!

He's the playwright of "things". It's a modern affliction. The characters are presenters of ideas not developed, alive or soul-full. If you believe that drama is about love and its betrayal, you sit there and well... don't care. You may applaud. Stand and cheer... the ideas, the structure, thethe technicality of it but... But like the dot-com boom of the 80s - all hot air.

Um... we did this already. Over and over.

How many more plays about 80s Wall Street excess before we get a frigging original idea in the American Theater?! Talk about diminishing returns...

"Junk" is theater that is so desperately needed as social criticism.

I salute Mr. Akhtar for writing it, and for accomplishing so much. He sounds like a fascinating individual, and a good guy.

How can I get tickets?

I find the personal path of Mr. Akhbar fascinating, as a result of crossing-over of Islamic beliefs and European literature.
Apart of that, I wish he took the road of Paul Erdman in writing financial crime stories with Wall Street as his target.

As an independent registered broker-dealer in this era, the subject and drama at hand is understood. Most of the American public had little-to-no idea what was going on with "Wall Street" back then any more than they do now as "the market" forges ahead. The same is abundantly apparent with today's political "market". Milken was not unlike Trump with bluster and running roughshod until his ways blew him up.
( "To be continued . . . " )

Any little bit that will serve to lift the wool placed over America's eyes by the Reagan Restoration.

Thanks for this portrait of a great creative writer. Even if i do not get to see the plays, reading about them in such well written articles is informative and enjoyable. Thanks NY Times.

In my next life I want to spend all my time reading these articles and attending these shows. Thanks for the glimpse into this world - I hope to see it on stage one day!

This is a beautifully article about a fascinating man. I would love to hear a conversation between Ayad Akhtar and Sam Harris!