It’s hard to discern a higher meaning from John Patrick Shanley’s latest play, Brooklyn Laundry. Is it a play about the precariousness of human connection? A lesson on the sacrifices women make?
Any intelligible destination is unclear as the play languishes under a vagueness. Shanley uses a cascade of circumstances – terminal illness, the burden of caretaking – to counterfeit emotional response. Instead of crafting specific female characters, Shanley, who writes and directs, introduces an onslaught of unhappiness that goes nowhere and is seemingly only curable by men.
