Three Changes

Description
Playwright Nicky Silver has hatched several adept dark comedies, but in this would-be thriller, he merely lays an egg; the play is not even developed enough to be a full-fledged turkey. Silver’s emptily cynical story—in which an Upper West Side man and his wife welcome a sadistic, manipulative drug addict to live with them—is at once shrill and blah, and Wilson Milam’s inept staging elicits soporific or obnoxious performances from the capable cast. A poorly structured pile-on of whiny, wandering dialogue, papier-mâché characters and phony plot twists, Three Changes is the kind of play that Joe Orton might have written after he was brained with a hammer.—AF