Raleigh Little Theatre Review
Robert W. McDowell
September 3, 2009

The Wasps In RLT's “Scenes From American Life” Lack Sting

Raleigh Little Theatre guest director Rod Rich’s briskly paced production of Scenes From American Life, which will complete its three-week run on Sept. 10-13 and 17-20 in RLT’s Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre, is energetically acted but only moderately entertaining, because the episodic script somehow lacks the bite of good satire, not to mention distinct central characters and a discernable dramatic through-line.

In Scenes From American Life, celebrated social satirist A.R. Gurney, Jr.’s takes another mighty swipe at the Establishment; but his upper-middle-class White Anglo-Saxon Protestant characters are little more than WASP stereotypes, hardly distinguishable from one another. Moreover, the vignettes in which they appear are sometimes so brief that their point is obscured. RLT patrons might well ask, “WASP, where is thy sting?,” because the satire in Scenes From American Life is nowhere near as razor-sharp and on the mark as the zingers that earned The Dining Room (1985) and Love Letters (1990) nominations for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

To read the rest of this Classical Voice of North Carolina review, please go to http://cvnc.org/reviews/2009/092009/Scenes.html.

Raleigh Little Theatre presents Scenes From American Life Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 10-12 and 17-19, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, Sept. 13 and 20, at 3 p.m. in the Gaddy-Goodwin Teaching Theatre, 301 Pogue St., Raleigh, North Carolina 27607. TICKETS: $18 ($15 students and seniors 62+). BOX OFFICE: 919/821-3111, boxoffice@raleighlittletheatre.org, or http://www.etix.com/. NOTE: All shows are wheelchair accessible.. SHOW/PRESENTER/VENUE: http://raleighlittletheatre.org/performances/09-10/scenes.html. PARKING: http://raleighlittletheatre.org/about/parking.html. OTHER LINKS: The Play: http://argurney.com/large_casts.html#scenesfrom (from A.R. Gurney, Jr.’s web site) and http://www.lortel.org/ (Internet Off-Broadway Database). The Playwright: http://argurney.com/ (official web site), http://www.lortel.org/ (Internet Off-Broadway Database), http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=84220 (Internet Broadway Database), and http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0348672/ (Internet Movie Database).

You are here: Home > Reviews and articles about the theatre's productions > Review: Scenes From American Life