say good night, john boy

I'll be honest: The main reason I hoped to see "A Naked Girl on the Appian Way" had nothing to do with gay playwright Richard Greenberg or his previous success with "Take Me Out."
Really, I just wanted to see John Boy Walton on stage.
When I was a kid, my family just loved "The Waltons." Who wouldn't adore the show, which was homespun 1970s treacle at its mopey best? Hum the first few bars of the theme song even today and I'll get chills.

Sadly, John Boy, I mean Richard Thomas, has ventured pretty far from Walton's Mountain with "Appian Way," a show so pretentious and self-serving that I'm shocked it's made it to this stage of production.
I won't give anything away, but let's just say that the plot is preposterous. Greenberg's trying to spin some sort of indictment of the convictionless liberal elite. But in doing so, he's lost sight of some basic truths of the ways in which real people interact. Yes, a few zingers along the way might score some laughs. But the sit-com pacing gets old quick.

I will say this about the show. After seeing Jill Clayburgh on stage tonight, I'm now even more curious about the film version of "Running With Scissors." She plays Agnes, Augusten's adopted mother, which just sounds like an odd fit.
Too bad she has to include this stinker of a show on her resume.