The Ruins Of Civilization

The Ruins Of Civilization is playing at the City Center Stage ll located at 131 West 55th Street. The play runs two hours and fifteen minutes with one intermission. It closes on June 5, 2016.

Penelope Skinner is the playwright. She won both of the U K’s most promising playwrights prizes in 2011 for The Village.

Tim Daly is known for his role on CBS series Madame Secretary.

The play takes place in England sometime in the future.

Dolores (Rachael Holmes) and her husband Silver (Tim Daly) are returning from a trip. Their home is functional but nothing more. The country they visited is poor. Dolores is still upset about a dog hit by a car. She wished she has stopped to help it. Dolores is also upset about not giving children money when they asked her for it. Silver calms her down.

Silver keeps complaining about a smell in the home but he can’t locate where it is coming from. He steps into something. Dolores cleans it up to shut him up about it. They find out later it was a cat which is consider vermin and must be killed.

They are visited by Joy (Orlagh Cassidy). She works for the government. Joy asks Dolores a series of questions. One is, is she taking her pill. Another what are her thought on having a baby. Dolores replies never to all the questions. All the questions have to do with having a baby. The government has a law about people having children. Silver asks if that means they are off the government list as a threat. Joy says yes.

Silver has been writing a book for the past nine years.

Dolores has nothing to do. She is feels empty and need to help someone. When she see’s a notice of a massage therapist around her neighborhood, she gives the person a call.

Mara (Roxanna) arrives to give her a massage. She tells her she is from the country Dolores has just visited. There are no job opportunities in England unless you have a permanent place to stay. She is living in a shelter. Her job is giving massages and hand job to men. Her last customer raped her. She couldn’t report him because his brother was police captain.

One thing leads to another and Dolores invites her to live in her spare bedroom.

Events happen which I don’t want to tell you and spoil the play.

The acting was great. Tim Daly English accent was flawless.

The story was interesting but it left meup in the air as to why certain things were happening. Why can’t families have children, were there selected couples that could? What happen to cause this? Why are cats considered vermin and they have to be destroyed. If no children are born there is no civilization.

Review by Rozanna Radakovich.

Photos by Annazor.

To read a candid interview with the cast, scroll down to the left for recent photos. Click on recent photos for this and other shows.