More Is Less

Seemingly oblivious to the play's problems, director Nicholson and his collaborators overexert themselves to bring it to life. The set is a precarious, wobbling construction that threatens to topple over onto the audience in an avalanche of old compact discs, rusty bric-a-brac, and skanky-looking Safeway plastic bags. The baggy, urchinlike thrift store costumes scream futuristic dystopia while making the actors look like they've stumbled off Duran Duran's "Wild Boys" video circa 1984. Unperturbed, the performers attack their task with maniacal devotion. Mugging abounds. Brows sweat profusely. They're all trying to act their little socks off, in other words.

"Trying," however, is not a great way to go about one's business in the world. Just as the law of reversed effort dictates that less, when it comes to both life and art, is more, so attempting to do something is never quite as helpful as actually doing it – and, preferably, doing it well. As Jedi Master Yoda so eloquently put it: "Do, or do not. There is no try."