Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
What premieres right after Thanksgiving?
Can they get it together to sit up straight?
In two post-Thanksgiving shows, we see one shared answer to our carbohydrate-glutted attentions: Overwhelm them.
Parson, though, doesnt pay much attention to category.
So Guys work is usually found in museums?
Doesnt bother her a bit.
This is a good explanation of what Parson does too.
She writes about Cointets texts as things that bask in the hot mess of the non-narrative posing as narrative.
(Things happen; relationships exist; there is never anything so conventional as a plot.)
Parsons key verb there isbask.
De Cointet spent time in Los Angeles, and a Pacific ennui pervades both the script and the experience.
WatchingThe Mood Roomis like being heat-dazed.
Without noticing, your internal clock hops forward fifteen minutes, then seems to crawl backwards.
Barely an hour long, the show takes an entire California afternoon.
They evince some doubt) sisters reunite a year after their parents deaths.
Fragments of ChekhovsThree Sistersshow up in their speech, interpolated there by Parson.
Dolly (Elizabeth DeMent) her face fixed in an anxious frown talks about her passion for work.
(She makes him carry his shoes; clearly this guy will not be leaving a mark.)
Eventually, though, she too slows and stops, overwhelmed by the other sisters inertia.
Sui sings the word beautiful, and pink sunset light fades on their fancy, edgeless, beige nothing.
Even a few hours afterThe Mood Room,I was struggling to remember it.
Thats not a knock on the show its a tribute to its moody, eerie affect.
Now,Candlelight, on the other hand …
Even from the beginning, something seemed hinky.
As I sat down, though, I felt a sudden pang.
Little Esperanza (Ivette Dumeng) is having a rough night.
What are you, new?In the nuts.
But the careering production (directed by Lori Kee) cant make sense of Shanleys maniacal swings in tone.
Theres something majestic, though, in how hard it steers right for the guardrails.
(I have enjoyedtalkingaboutCandlelight, and thats not nothing.)
Can you tell I have been trying to talk myself into liking it for almost a day now?
I cant quite do it, but maybe you could.
The squirrel gets himin the nuts.Cmon!That has to be worth something.
The Mood Roomis at BAM through December 5.Candlelightis at the New Ohio Theatre through December 19.
