Brief Encounter
2 / 10
This show annoyed me greatly—as I watched it and then, later, as I thought about what it signified. Because apart from being a prankish and gimmick-ridden stunt, I don't know what it's supposed to be about. It's not a sincere retelling of Coward's screenplay, or a deconstruction of it, or a parody of it. It wants to eat its cake and have it too by pretending to care about the romantic story at Brief Encounter's heart while simultaneously revealing it to be hollow and hackneyed. Why do artists fetishize cultural icons like this? And why does an organization like Roundabout Theatre Company want to use its (relatively) scarce resources to present work that's both derivative and devoid of any kind of substance when so many worthy American artists are making new work that's neither of those things?
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