Sons of the Prophet (Normal Ave)

See it if a play popular from several years ago, overpraised and overrated but amusing, witty, occasionally touching, and never boring nonetheless.

Don't see it if you want to support a new (three-years-old or so) worthy theater company and pass two hours pleasantly ..

Also The play left me wondering if the point of all its busy-ness is that everybody in the world is in pain, physical, mental, or both. That does indeed seem to be the point. The play starts off with a lot of energy, humor, witty dialogue, and interesting characters but never builds on that beginning or develops a deepening conflict that would have made me sit up and keep watching eagerly to find out what would happen. There's no "arc" of rising action so that when, in the more or less arbitrary climax, the main character tells off two characters (who have not really become his antagonists), it clearly feels as if the playwright has checked off (another) box. The final scene is likewise a wrap-up: a box that has to be checked off. All the characters, even the main one, seem peripheral as they bounce around in a play that wants to say a lot but doesn't really say much more than the point I mentioned above.... Read more Read less