Review: ‘Tell Me I’m Not Crazy’
WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. » When a new play’s biggest problem is that it offers too much to think about, you know it has a promising future.
Actually, “Tell Me I’m Not Crazy,” which is being given its world premiere at the smaller Nikos Theatre of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, is a good night of theater right now. And with some judicious editing, it’s going to get even better.
The play, which continues through August 3, is laugh- out-loud funny as it addresses every modern concern - with the possible exception of gender identity.
Instead, the play spends a lot of time on the changing roles of straight male and females in today’s society.
The four- character play features a couple in their 60’s dealing with a world that is changing so fast it becomes threatening.
Indeed, some of the threats are very real. There has been a home invasion of a neighbor that was so dangerous Sol bought a gun for protection.
This starts off a chain of reactions from his wife, son, and daughter-in-law. They see this as an overreaction, and they argue that a man who staples his thumb to a wall is not fit to own a firearm.
His son Nate and his wife, Alisa, are the model of a modern couple. He is a house-husband who stays at home to care for their two young children. She is an ambitious and talented woman who in order to advance her career must make choices that force her to neglect her family.
In between the laughs, playwright Sharyn Rothstein, tosses in issues of latent racism, vigilantism, forced retirement, suggestions of male insecurities manifesting itself by an absence of sexual desire and the general ills of living in a dog- eat- dog Capitalist society. There are in-law problems and the young parents are dealing with one child probably being autistic. All of these problems are accentuated by the failed dreams of every character.
There is also a problem with a huge stack of un