Review: A Perfect Future (Time Out NY, February 22, 2011)

This review is available online at:
http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/theater/953821/review-a-perfect-future

Theater

Review: A Perfect Future

Middle-aged ex-hippies reel in the years in this sour little drama. By Pamela Newton

BOOZE CLUES Bullock, left, gets tipsy with Weiss.
Photograph: Richard Termine

Cherry Lane Theatre (see Off Broadway). By David Hay. Dir. Wilson Milam. With Donna Bullock, Scott Drummond, Daniel Oreskes, Michael T. Weiss. 1hr 30mins. One intermission.

This much alcohol hasn't been consumed on stage, nor this much dirty laundry aired by a warring foursome, since Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? David Hay's A Perfect Future aims to be a Virginia Woolf for Baby Boomers, minus much of the subtle insidiousness of Albee's masterpiece.

John (Weiss) and Natalie (Bullock) have been together since college, when they took to the proverbial streets and touted free love as the ultimate radical doctrine. Now they are middle-aged yuppies with their own sommelier, clinging to shreds of their activist youth by writing large checks to worthy causes. Their old friend Elliot (Oreskes) stops by, hoping to score a donation for his latest human-rights crusade. Add Mark (Drummond)--0 years their junior and a recent hire at John's investment firm--and an inordinate amount of red wine, and let the head games begin.

Given that the first half of the drama is mostly setup, the second half should be payoff. But instead of mining his characters' hypocrisies and self-delusions, Hay goes for shock value, with a disturbing denouement that is the dramatic equivalent of a Scooby-Doo villain tearing off his fright mask. Aside from charming moments (most of them in scenes between Oreskes and Drummond), the acting and the script feel canned. The point of all this psychological violence eludes me, but if this is a perfect future, I'll need another glass of wine.

February 22, 2011