Three Hotels

Told via a triptych of monologues, Jon Robin Baitz’s play (originally written for television in 1990 and premiering on stage three years later) deals, in a broad sense, with the moral ambiguities of America’s—and Americans’—influence abroad. The first and final monologues are delivered by Ken Hoyle, an executive in charge of selling powdered infant formula in developing nations (though Ken prefers to call them “third world”; there’s so little about them that’s developing, he says). The unethical, or at least amoral, tactics his company uses—dressing sales girls as nurses or nuns; mounting billboards implying doctors’ endorsements that the formula is better than breast milk—recall the African baby-formula scandal of the ’70s and ’80s that led to interventions by UNICEF and the World Health Organization and the Nestlé boycott.

The middle scene, delivered by Ken’s wife, Barbara, after she’s delivered a speech to the executives’ wives’ club in the midst of the scandal, contextualizes and humanizes Ken’s initial appearance. The information she provides us about the death of their son on one of Ken’s international assignments helps to ground Ken’s ugly-American behavior.

Baitz’s play is ultimately an indictment of the way international business-—the culture of greed-—has evolved into American colonialism. “We have brought them our worst,” Ken finally says. The playwright’s structure only allows the actors to interact with us (never directly with each other), but Parry and Graves overcome the potential pitfalls in a manner reminiscent of many modern couples: They create a credibly human marriage without ever being in the same room.