Anywho...
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I kind of LOVED IT (Jo Ann Woorly voice - my goodness I date myself).It was the typical West Texas Bible Belt Play, but played with seriousness and heart. It was funny in parts, funny as hell, but it was all organic humor coming from view of the normal / poorer people laughing at the foibles of themselves and others, not laughing at them as so often happens. This people weren't hicks, they just didn't have as much as others.
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Now if you, like me, know Beth Grant from Sordid Lives, it is hard to get that image out of your mind. Particularly because here she plays a more serious rift on Earleen. You can't ignore the comparison for the first 20 minutes, and can't remember it after that. It is an impressive and moving performance (at first I said "heartbreaking" but that isn't really right - she doesn't break your heart, but you do understand and empathize with her)..
Tricks travels freely between 20+ years of Betty and Don's life together and how they drug each other apart. Grew apart doesn't give it justice. And to call it about the relationship doesn't do it justice.
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Don (a blazing performance by both TJ Linnard and Peter Bradbury as the younger and older) is a man driven by nothing more malicious than selfishness. He doesn't have any idea of the wrong he does, because he is incapable of seeing anything but his own viewpoint. Yes - I know that is TOTALLY my father - I can't tell you how much of him I saw in Don - including the charm, the bizarre self involvement and the unacknowledged destruction that trailed him. TJ Linnard pull off the difficult trick of being the younger Don and totally self-centered - as well as being the son of the old Don and done it by it. It just reinforced the idea that life can be a vicious cycle we have to break.
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And yet.... it's funny as all hell at times.
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If you are in New York - go see this. It's great (and at a tiny theater in Greenwich Village). (Link).. And no, I didn't get paid to write this, or even a free ticket. I stopped reviewing (my review would have been longer and wouldn't have mentioned my father).