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Friday, November 02, 2007

Things We Want

photo: Monique Carboni

I have nothing but praise for the ensemble of this current production from The New Group: all four actors, under Ethan Hawke's able direction, give natural and vibrant performances. (And Zoe Kazan, the lone female in the group, is by now enough of a reason to see anything she's in: she's easily one of the best and brightest young actors of today.) But the play, despite some snappy dialogue, too often smacks of contrivance: the first act concludes with an exchange between Kazan and Paul Dano that is meant to convincingly move their characters' relationship from strangers to something else, and the fact that it doesn't convince can only be blamed on the playwrighting.

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