‘Straight Line Crazy’ Review: Ralph Fiennes Plays Robert Moses in David Hare’s Talky New Play
variety.comDavid Benedict “We’ve discussed this. We’ve discussed this many times.” That wearied line, which appears in the final scene of David Hare’s new play “Straight Line Crazy,” is spoken by Ariel Porter (Samuel Barnett), the long-suffering right-hand man to New York’s legendary urban planner Robert Moses (Ralph Fiennes).
But while it serves as a rebuke to Moses, it also sums up the besetting sin of the show now premiering at the Bridge Theatre in London.
The play is made up of discussion, often energized by hard-working actors, but while Hare famously fashioned debates around the Iraq War into the invigorating “Stuff Happens,” in “Straight Line Crazy” almost nothing happens.The base material, the story behind Moses’s spectacular rise and fall, is fascinating.
Moses is the singular man who, from the 1920s onwards, radically changed the physical landscape of America, first of Long Island, then Manhattan and then the country.
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