Don't Go to New York, Young Playwright

Christine Toy Johnson and Bernardo Cubria in Philip Goes Forth.

The scion of a wealthy family moves to New York to become a playwright. That's the premise of George Kelly's Philip Goes Forth, as well as the dramatist's own biography. But while things went well for Kelly—who wrote The Torch-Bearers, The Show-Off and won a Pulitzer for Craig's Wife, in addition to being Grace's uncle—Philip's fortunes go in a different (and not especially interesting) direction.

A Hell of Blessing's Making

Edward James Hyland and David Deblinger in User's Guide.

How can a play that features a 9/11 terrorist fucking a Ponzi-scheme master in ass be as tame and trite as Lee Blessing's A User's Guide to Hell, featuring Bernard Madoff? Given the current state of U.S.-Russia relations, Project Y Theatre might have had more success reviving the Tony-nominated author's much more considerate A Walk in the Woods.

You can watch a scene from the original production, starring Sam Waterston and Robert Prosky, starting at 5:50.

Past Doesn't Come Alive

Tony Naumovski and Elizabeth Jasicki in Final Analysis.

Should I ever be lucky enough to get on the TARDIS, time-travel back to early-20th-century Vienna, and meet Freud, Mahler and others of their ilk, I would hope they wouldn't be as dull as they seem in the Off Broadway play Final Analysis.