The Play's the Thing

After seeing Clare Barron's new play, Dance Nation , at Playwrights Horizons, I am angry. I am angry that Playwrights Horizons put something so underdeveloped and half-baked on their stage. I am angry that this play represents the state of New York theater these days. I am angry that I won't get those two hours of my life back that I spent suffering through it. (And now I am angry at the raves it received. But nothing should surprise me anymore.) It's the kind of play that would make me swear off theater if I wasn't already excited to see The Beast in the Jungle and Torch Song and The Ferryman . And of course, if I wasn't a masochist. I really don't know what I was expecting from Dance Nation . I was okay with Barron's concept of adults playing the 13 year old girls (it happened in The Wolves and worked beautifully; I wouldn't expect, nor would I want, actual teenagers in this play), and I was even okay with one of them being played by an act...