Perhaps you are looking to see Nottage embrace a point of view, to find clear heroes and villains in this time of diminished expectations for some and caveat-laden opportunities for others? I do not mean to evaluate your response as simplistic, because I do agree that "the characters' histories themselves need to earn the stage time" and that here they did not always. I did not find it flat, however, and I found Nottage's unbiased look at every one of these characters refreshing and even essential. This was a play not only about people we do not often see on Broadway, but about people who can not easily be characterized. In that, I found it quite bold.
Your response does peek my curiosity, because I wondered if the production itself wasn't occasionally heavy-handed. Perhaps that was a response to what Whoriskey found problematic on the page? I am sure there is no answer to that.
I will say that I found involving and challenging drama in the colliding and incompatible realities of its characters, and their plights resonated more substantially with me than those of any of the year's other plays, all of which I felt I was to some extent revisiting (and no, that does not only apply to A Doll's House Part 2). |
