The Marriage Of Bette And Boo

photo: Joan Marcus

Christopher Durang's brilliant, semi-absurd tragicomedy is at least in part a slam against the pre-feminist establishment: it's of the by-gone era when the best middle class homes included a well-stocked bar, the women stayed home to make babies and dinner, and the kids were against the Vietnam War. The production at the Roundabout doesn't really commit to that era, as if doing so would date the material, but the material ages much more visibly when not grounded it in that specific time in American history. The cast is wildly uneven - there are John Glover, Julie Hagerty and Victoria Clark among those who are ably playing something beneath the veneer of comic absurdity, and then there is everyone else just playing.