The Play's the Thing

More like this flat play, am I right? I think Lindsey Ferrentino is a very talented and versatile playwright but her newest play, This Flat Earth at Playwrights Horizons, is startlingly inept and unfocused. It's as though she threw everything she could at the wall just to see what would stick. This Flat Earth is about the all-too-timely topic of school shootings, and we focus on Julie, a survivor of a recent middle school one. Julie lives with her father in a small walk up apartment in a New England town. It's quickly evident that this family isn't as well off as the other students in the school; they live in an apartment, Julie doesn't have a cell phone or laptop, and has to rent her violin for the school orchestra. And she is, understandably, having a hard time adjusting to things after the shooting. But her character is all over the place--she's inappropriate and cracks jokes about dead students, she's terrified of the noises she hears in the middle of t...

There's so much to celebrate about Lindsey Ferrentino's Amy and the Orphans. The play is not only one of the better things of the season but it manages to be funny, entertaining, well-acted, and a major victory for inclusion. Ferrentino's title character has Down Syndrome, and is played by Jamie Brewer, who also has the disease (as does her understudy, Eddie Barbanell. The play becomes Andy and the Orphans when he plays the role.) Amy is never the butt of a joke, never a punch line, and is never exploited, as writers and directors often tend to do when dealing with disabled actors or characters. But of course, that's Ferrentino's intention. Amy has been locked away in group homes (some terrible, some good) her entire life, with limited time spent with her own family. She has had to fend for herself but has developed into a strong individual with likes and dislikes, and even has a boyfriend and a job. Amy has clearly had to overcome a great deal in her life, and...