In A Dark Dark House, a play by Neil La Bute at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. With Ron Livingston, Frederick Weller, Louisa Krause, directed by Carolyn Cantor. We've always enjoyed Neil LaBute's skillfully written shockers and "In A Dark Dark House" was no exception. Invariably, they run a lean 90 minutes and usually are engrossing from first to last. However, yesterday at the Sunday matinee, I found myself looking at my watch, a bad sign and a first for me in a LaBute play. I waited for that clever trademark dark O'Henry twist to come at the end, but it never does. Oh yes there is a twist, but it's more like a soggy pretzel twist than the masterful kick in the stomach LaBute usually provides. The play itself seems thin. We keep hearing the same thing over and over: Child abuse, a savage parent. These are themes that were much more skillfully explored by David Harrower in the tighter and more powerful "Blackbird."
Where LaBute lost me was in the second scene which is the scariest, but in which everything that follows is silently given away almost at the start by the actions of one of the players in a directorial misstep of major proportions. Otherwise this mini act is tautly played by Louisa Krause and Frederick Weller. Ron Livingston, who will never be forgiven by some (including my daughter who joined us for the play) for breaking up with Carrie in "Sex and the City" with a Post-It note, plays his nasty shallow part to perfection; for sure, the acting is on a high level in this three-hander. However the production, though always taking place out of doors, seemed unusually clostrophobic even for the diminutive Lortel stage.
Many critics have taken swipes at LaBute for being overly prolific, since every season seems to bring not one but two plays by him ("Wrecks" appeared earlier), but I always look forward to them and I haven't been disappointed, until now. I hope this is just an anomaly and not a sign that he's running out of inspiration. If you're in the city, "In A Dark Dark House" is worth checking out, but we felt that it wasn't worth a commute, and yesterday's awful commute, in the middle of a tropical storm was a beaut. Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test grade C+