Kindness 2008

I believe it was Chekhov who said that if a hammer appears on stage in the first act, somebody better use it to build a shelf in the second act. Well, Adam Rapp's Kindness contains no carpentry but there is quite a bit of suspense involving the appearance of a hammer. And while the play, directed by the author, is a bit of a cruise to nowhere, it's still an interesting excursion with an odd mixture of tragic realism and broad comedy (at one point someone actually walks into a wall as a gag) gamely played by an engaging cast.