[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Sunset Limited" at none too fragile

Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL neohiopal at lists.neohiopal.org
Sun Sep 14 08:48:17 PDT 2014


none too fragile's 'The Sunset Limited' is a tad too fragile

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

 

Novelist and screenwriter Cormac McCarthy's well-crafted diatribe on the meaning of life and death is a brilliant piece of work.  Dense with thoughtful reflection, poetic in its composition, and eloquent in its articulation of diverse philosophical outlooks, "The Sunset Limited" is a pleasure to listen to but displeasing to watch.  It is, quite frankly, a lousy play.

 

In it, two guys engage in a faith-versus-reason debate.  White (Richard Worswick), a Caucasian professor, is deeply committed to rational thought, atheism and the suicide he has contemplated for years.  Black (Myron Lewis) is an African-American ex-con turned devout Christian, who happens upon White on a subway platform and cuts short his attempted suicide leap. Now they sit at a kitchen table in Black's austere tenement apartment, to talk things through.  

 

And talk and talk and talk.  

 

More intervention than theatrical production, "The Sunset Limited" has White and Black state and re-state their respective arguments with no dramatic arc and very little dramatic action for an uninterrupted 1 hour and 45 minutes.  The words are wonderful but, my, how they accumulate.



For more of this review, go to:  http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/features/article_cb7ed1f2-3c24-11e4-ba07-03994ac57bf8.html
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