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Shows Worth Seeing:
Wyoming
By Brian Watkins
Theater for the New City
155 First Ave.
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Wyoming glides by in a quietly gripping 95 minutes. The tale of a family riven by a dreadful event—a father’s murder by his 16-year-old son—its action alternates between monologues and duologues recapping the past and a climactic scene 20 years after the crime when the son suddenly turns up at Thanksgiving dinner. Every scene is intensely, uncomfortably intimate, and the fantastic 7-member cast, directed by Danya Taymor, adds tremendous nuance. As in his previous play, My Daughter Keeps Our Hammer—directed by Taymor last year at the Flea Theatre—Watkins keeps his storytelling relaxed and slow-burning, leaning heavily on monologue. Both plays deal with family violence and hover at the edge of gothic without ever tipping over. To his credit, this young playwright is more interested in credible (and painful) psychology than jazzy contrivance. That Wyoming, for all its ominousness, ends powerfully yet indefinitely without a clear villain is an achievement in itself.
