Bad reviews are so much more fun than good reivews:
Sarah Ruhl is officially trendy. Not only did the 32-year-old playwright just win a MacArthur "genius grant," but she's making a high-profile New York debut: "The Clean House," which has been staged at the Yale Repertory Theatre and numerous other top regional houses and was a Pulitzer finalist last year, has now come to town in a glossy production starring Blair Brown and Jill Clayburgh. As if that weren't enough buzz for one human being to generate, Ms. Ruhl says she's working on a new play about the history of... the vibrator.
If I sound skeptical about Ms. Ruhl, there's a reason. It's possible to be both trendy and talented, and I suppose it might be possible to write a good play about vibrators, too. I can even think of a few genuine geniuses who've won MacArthurs. But when all these suspicious-looking items turned up on the same résumé, the red light on my Faux-O-Meter started blinking, which is why I wasn't surprised when "The Clean House" failed to live up to its hype. It's clever -- too clever by at least half -- but scrape away the postmodern trickery and it's nothing more than a soap opera for pseudointellectuals.
Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal (excerpted in Terry's blog).
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