| I liked BOOTCANDY and BARBECUE very much. They were disjointed but funny in a spirited, anarchic way. And because they felt rooted in some presumably lived experience of O'Hara's, the scathing satire was affectionate as well. MANKIND, however, is a pontifical satire; it's outlandish but it's a bore because it's more smug--and smugly superior--than it is funny. Its humor, such as it is, is mostly didactic and, because of this, it grows tiresome fast. MANKIND wants very badly to be provocative, but it's intellectually banal. Every tired and forcibly outrageous turn lands with a thud. In all, one of the most disappointing new plays in some time. |
