Blind

A baffling stylistic departure for playwright Craig Wright in which the ancient Oedipus tragedy is given a modern-times revision, Blind is an unfortunately weak and consistently uninvolving 80 minute one-act that feels far longer. We watch Oedipus (Seth Numrich) and his wife-mother Jocasta (Veanne Cox) arguing in their bedroom, mostly with accusations that the other knew they were blood-related before they hooked up. The atmosphere should be tortured and intense but Wright's dialogue, an awkward and deadly serious mix of the modern and the faux-ancient, keeps getting stuck in the actors' mouths and tripping them up. It's not clear why Wright decided to take Oedipus on in the first place - putting the story in a modern setting doesn't add anything to it and strips it of its gravitas. Cox spends a good deal of time on the floor propped up by one arm as Numrich stands over her going on, and on, with complaints - Wright has reduced Oedipus to a wearying lightweight and Jocasta, for most of the play, to a doormat. The two actors are at least in the same play; Danielle Slavick, who occasionally intrudes as a servant, is in a different one altogether.