Stan Richardson

It is appalling that in this day and age, there is no way of communicating to the actors 'It's not you, it's the play,' as one storms out of the theatre. And so I sat wringing my hands during the final ten minutes of Geoffrey Nauffts's Next Fall as the characters were tasked with discussing the final ten minutes of Thornton Wilder's Our Town and coming to the jejune conclusion that people just can't appreciate what they have until it's gone. It is not a spoiler to note that this borrowed catharsis takes place in a hospital waiting room just when the waiting has ended and the five pontificating points of view passed off as dramatis personae are about to finally realize that, in the face of death, we are not so very different.