Thank you, Stephen Leigh Morris, for acknowledging the bourgeois nature of these character's problems. As a person who has contended with penury, the likes of which Gibson's chraracters could never bear, caregiving for sick family and a host of other challenges, and, as often possible, with a sense of humor about my troubles which I recognize could be far, far worse still, I find it nearly impossible to sympathize with Gibson's characters. I suppose "this" is what happens when the only playwrights having work produced are coming out of exorbitantly priced, exorbitantly time-consuming, high-rolling MFA programs like Yale. I know that the upper middle class deserve to have their voice too (God forbid), but to hear the voices of the less fortunate as well might be a bit refreshing after years of plays like "this." I think what would render these people sympathetic would be if they were able to transcend themselves and their lightweight problems. Too much of today's theatre is spent on portraying the problems of the elite with such gravity and weight and to such operatic proportions not worthy of such spoiled and whiney ingrates.
