The Ally is eminently watchable, although it seems like it shouldn’t be. Unless, that is, you go to the theater to be lectured on geopolitical issues. Itamar Moses’ new drama runs more than 2½ hours, and you might feel like you spend about two hours of it watching one character, who’s speaking to another person on stage, deliver a speech that elucidates a stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, complete with historical references, geographical context, statistics and preemptive rebuttals.
The Babylon Line
It’s almost three decades since Richard Greenberg distinguished himself as the baby boomers’ Philip Barry. For audiences of the late 1980s, the dialogue of Greenberg’s breakout comedy Eastern Standard was as racy and iconoclastic as The Philadelphia Story had been to playgoers in the late 1930s; and the frolicsome plot and screwball characters had a joie de vivre reminiscent of Barry’s Holiday. At a moment when the Great White Way was being colonized by super-sized, techno-heavy musical productions imported from afar, Eastern Standard appeared to be reclaiming the New York Theater District for native wit and homegrown perspectives.