Reviewed by Robbie Gottlieb

The Last Station Review

How do you critique something that has no discernable plot, no obvious character development, and no clear story arc? The (Last) Station, the new play from director Irina Abraham and writer Eugene Muzica running now at the Planet Connections Festival, seemed to me the story of a very loud air conditioner making war on a set of very incoherent actors. Smarter men than me might make the case that this play was rich with literary allusion and playful ambiguity. Other sensible men might claim that this play was an affront on their sensibilities. I refuse to take sides in this very hypothetical argument. I will only say that I didn’t understand The (Last) Station.

A play with so many literary aspirations might work better as a novel. Perhaps they could have included a list of prerequisite readings. Alternatively, Muzica might have tried more relatable archetypes for his preoccupied protagonists. If the audience is going to try and follow a group of nonsensical nobodies on their trip through nonreality, we need something familiar. Without a point of reference to grab on to, I felt completely lost. As The (Last) Station dragged on, I hoped for something or someone coherent to enter the fray. With no such hero in sight, I felt myself rooting for the Air Conditioner.