Robert Moses, who largely landscaped metropolitan New York, shared the name of a famous biblical character. Although there, as David Hare’s new play makes vividly clear, the comparisons ended. The urban planner was a far more self-confident prophet and notably more insistent about his commandments being followed. As captured in Ralph Fiennes’ enthralling performance, the American Moses wouldn’t have delivered his instructions from a burning bush, but would have incinerated the entire landscape.
Moses’s life encompassed 18 different US presidents, from Grover Cleveland to Ronald Reagan, but Hare focuses on two enclosed episodes. In 1926, he strong-arms New York governor Al Smith into agreeing two vast expressways that will connect the city to parks and beaches on Long Island; in 1955, he attempts to put a road through New York’s Washington Square Park, but is resisted by early versions of nimbyism and environmentalism.
