Williamson wrote this in a cranky mood - cranky at the ways of the world, the GFC, the crooked bankers, the death and greed. It's all Thatcher and Reagan, apparently, and democracy doesn't work because politicians can be bought. It's written with about as much insight and political sophistication as an old man on a rant.
The concept is a rich old man is marrying a woman half his age. She's a grab bag of things rather than a person - Tea Party, Christian, anti-gay, anti-welfare, To Kill a Mockingbird fan. She felt like a series of punchlines rather than a character.
There's a typical alpha businessman widow (did he cheat on his now deceased wife? what do you think), and two sons, one an impoverished academic the other an engineer; the academic has a wife who is the moral conscience of the piece (she wonders at the end if she is the only person in the world who cares... does Dave feel like this, watching the news? He should really read a paper from 1961 sometime to see how things haven't changed... and 1931) She wants her father in law to pay back the money her father lost before she finds out the father in law was a crook; that doesn't seem fair. After finding out he was a crook yes, but not before.
One of the characters temporarily left his wife after an infatuation - I know Williamson did that IRL but he's got to stop using it in plays.
The best bit was the widowed mother talking about her relationship with the dead guy who was ripped off by alpha. That's quite moving.
I wonder if he could have turned this around with a dramaturg and more drafts. I don't think so. Unlike the majority of his recent plays I don't feel this had potential there's not enough in it. The good stuff could've been used in other plays.
There are as always some funny lines and it tells a story.
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