'Becky Shaw' Broadway review — no one holds back in this pitch-black relationship comedy
5 / 10
There’s a curious feeling that the production, directed by Trip Cullman, spends much of its run time sneering at its characters as it attempts to land every joke (and the show is very funny), which has the unfortunate effect of making this quasi-farce full of caricatures and not people. Thus, Max’s more reactionary points and Susan’s nihilism dilute the clarity of the ideas the show gestures toward: the compromise and ignorance necessary for love to function, the importance of incorporating others' pain into your existence, the way power is wielded between loved ones, the weakening of a generation by way of therapy talk. Though 150 minutes worth of poison-dart dialogue is fun to watch, by the end of the show, I couldn’t figure out what it was aiming for.
