![]() That final scene, as carefully written as it is, also feels, like much of the play, a kind of all-sides balancing act. ![]() We are led to a conclusion where science and faith meet face to face. At the end, we see how the mess of the death of Emily, and the certainty and authority Wolff imposed upon it to her own cost, mirrors this death much closer to her home, which-in private-Wolff sought to have no authority over, and has since felt helpless about as a result. Thrown into the mix of The Doctor is a semi-parental relationship Wolff has with a trans teenager, then a euthanasia storyline around her former partner (hauntingly, beautifully played by Juliet Garricks). Just as in The Thanksgiving Play, the real enemy of our time-red-in-tooth-and-claw authoritarianism-is completely ignored in favor of a by now all-too-familiar whining about language and what people (and playwrights) feel they can and can’t say. The Doctor is an echo of The Thanksgiving Play, wringing its ostensibly liberal hands over what it can and can’t say around cultural sensitivities, ignoring a real world where conservative bigots are denying free speech, playing the victim as they bully marginalized communities, and relentlessly persecuting minorities like LGBTQ people, especially young trans people, in law. That may well make The Doctor an open text, but instead of feeling open, it feels like an airless, closed, anger-filled room. The play doesn’t seem to know, or want to tell us, if Wolff is an implicit, unconscious racist, or if she is or isn’t aware of her privilege. In the second half, it features a TV show with panelists grilling Wolff-which is yet more heated debate, but not in service of the character in question. That may be the point-that all kinds of extremity can flow, especially in an age of social media, from a contested moment-but in The Doctor everything seems outsized and fury-filled from the beginning, as if the play can’t wait to start bellowing at itself. But, at least to this critic, the setup is ridiculously meager. You also have to buy that the premise leads to the scorched earth and hysteria that follows. Stephanie Berger Photography/Park Avenue Armory ![]() It doesn’t lead the characters anywhere new, and it doesn’t reveal anything new or interesting about the well-trodden subjects it obsessively fillets. The play doesn’t give Wolff enough dramatic rope to hang herself with in terms of plot, and circles the same thematic ground over and over again. ![]() The debate in the first half, given both its excessive volume and repetitiveness, becomes exhausting. Wolff appreciates any support, but she also disavows any kind of groupthink or alliance based on characteristics such as her gender and Jewishness. ![]() There is no escalation to shouting and heightened emotion, just shouting and more shouting over what happened when Wolff prevented the pastor from seeing the girl.Įvery point of view is represented: Wolff’s that she was just doing her job, and her supportive colleagues who scent a professional sacrifice, as well as antisemitism and sexism and then those who think her actions show a high-handed arrogance, a racism she holds implicitly, and an antagonism toward God and faith. For no reason at all, Stevenson and the cast, especially in the first half, simply shout at each other. Despite Wolff’s rock-hard resistance to play any kind of ball-one of the most delicious lines said on stage this year has to be Stevenson’s deadpan-monotoned, “I’m trending”-the play ends up in a cul-de-sac of Points Being Made Very Loudly. I’m a doctor,” Wolff says a self-propelling rallying cry. ![]()
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