"The Invisible Hand" @ Artist's Rep

The saying goes: "Good things come to those who wait" and that couldn't be more true about those of us who anticipated "The Invisible Hand," now playing at Artist's Rep. Bringing the play to the stage has been a multi-season struggle for the theatre. I seem to remember it was delayed twice, though I could be wrong. At any rate, former Artistic Director Allen Nause persevered, and came out of semi-retirement for the show.  The audience is richly rewarded by his efforts. "The Invisible Hand"has themes of terrorism and kidnapping, which are what attracted me to the show so fiercely, and it also deals with the stock market and economics. Thankfully, the latter is presented in an easily accessible way. "The Invisible Hand" 's strongest asset is how well it handles its "ripped from the headlines" feel. By that I mean, everyone winces at the mention of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, and feels the tension when violence is threatened, but what makes it more than a topical thriller is that it the economics angle is not often explored. And when it is explored, the complexity of the specialized language soon falls away to reveal simple and nauseating truths.