Review Roundup: THE RUINS OF CIVILIZATION Opens at Manhattan Theatre Club

Manhattan Theatre Club's world premiere of The Ruins of Civilization, the new play by award-winning playwright Penelope Skinner (The Village Bike), directed by Obie Award winner Leah C. Gardiner (Born Bad), opens tonight, May 18, at The Studio at Stage II - Harold and Mimi Steinberg New Play Series at New York City Center - Stage II.

The cast of the limited engagement features Drama Desk Award nominee Orlagh Cassidy (The Field at Irish Rep, "Guiding Light"), Emmy Award nominee Tim Daly("Madam Secretary"), Rachael Holmes (Amazon's "Mad Dogs," Ruined), and Roxanna Hope (Frost/Nixon).

Sometime in the future, Dolores (Rachael Holmes) and Silver (Tim Daly) are living their married life within the constraints and norms of a new world order. In an act of what seems like pure generosity, Dolores secretly opens their home to a stranger in need; but will she come to regret it? Can her actions have an impact or is it just too late?

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: All the social and cosmic ills that shape the world of this production - climate change, public surveillance of private lives, anti-immigration policies - can be read about in this morning's papers...And though "Ruins"...may be receiving its world premiere in the States, it presents a distinctly English satirical perspective on a future that tests the limits of the mantra "keep calm and carry on." That means that voices are seldom raised in this play, which has been directed with an appropriately anxious placidity by Leah C. Gardiner...If "Ruins" isn't the exhilarating shocker that "Bike" was, it's partly because Ms. Skinner is working on a broader - and heavier - social canvas here...Still, for a doomsday play, "Ruins" is remarkably pleasurable: well paced, well spoken and very deft in planting slyly placed clues as to what the future will be.

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter: Is it any wonder that the future depicted in Penelope Skinner's new play is dystopian? That's the only sort of future we're in for, if you believe the endless books, plays, television shows and movies on the subject. But however accurately forecasters have predicted bleakness, one can only hope that the future is less boring than the one depicted in the not too subtly titled The Ruins of Civilization...It's not just that the play's themes feel so distressingly familiar. It's that they're also rendered in tedious, meandering fashion, with a vagueness that's more frustrating than intriguing...The performers do what they can with the schematic material...Leah C. Gardiner's listless staging does little to elevate the energy level of the proceedings.

Adam Feldman, Time Out NY: It's not hard to imagine the trailer for a film version of Penelope Skinner's dystopian-not-too-distant-future drama, The Ruins of Civilization. It would begin, ominously, with "In a world...," then pan over an English landscape ravaged by climate change...the central couple is vapidly written and the world they inhabit is thinly drawn. One can only hope for a future in which Skinner has written a second draft of the play.

Robert Kahn, NBC New York: Daly, of TV's "Madam Secretary," adopts a British accent and does impressive work as a persnickety unpublished writer possessing an undercurrent of sensitivity...As Dolores, Holmes is conciliatory and fragile on the surface, but there's obviously a conflict brewing within. She knows who she is and what she wants, and her subversive side virtually oozes out in increasingly passive-aggressive interactions with her husband. I also was impressed with Hope's Mara, who arrives with a dramatic story that in lesser hands might leave us to suspect ulterior motives. Even with its questionable elements, we never doubt Mara's sincerity, even as we realize she has a big problem...All four characters seem like real people, trying to balance a sense of humanity with the human need to both adapt to circumstances ... and look out for ourselves.

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Photo Credit: Joan Marcus