Review: The dam never breaks in emotionally dry Jennifer Lawrence drama ‘Causeway’
At the outset of her career, a debut play of hers entitled “The Goat Test!” was written. (Read more of her interviews over at Playbill.)
“The Goat Test!” is about a man who, while working as an engineer for the company, meets his ex-wife (Jennifer Lawrence) for the first time. He is so happy with his current life that his wife’s former lover (John Hawkesworth) suddenly pops up on his doorstep and demands that he pay her a small fortune in relocation fees for the family’s farm.
The play is ostensibly about the relationship between men and women, and for a time, Lawrence’s character seemed to embody the ideal woman.
But as the play progressed, Lawrence’s character gradually becomes a malevolent shadow of her own.
Though she’s not cast as an unhappy woman, “the Goat Test” is one of the most overtly negative of all Lawrence’s performances. And in the final moments, the actor-director Jennifer Lawrence gives a passionate performance that makes the audience very uncomfortable.
The play is a one-woman show about love, and it’s the kind of play whose ending leaves you with a sinking feeling.
The drama is a story of marriage, a story of self-esteem, and a story of loss. It’s a play about infidelity. But, as the play has gone on, the show has gradually grown beyond the confines of simple infidelity to include a plot of deceit, a betrayal of trust and a loss of faith.
As a series of misunderstandings, the drama has gradually grown beyond the confines of simple infidelity to include a plot of deceit, a betrayal of trust and a loss of faith.
The tale of betrayal and the loss of a man becomes the tale of self-destruction.
There are scenes in the show that are very funny, of course. They’re often played as a farcical comedy of mistaken identity, or as a play on “The Honeymooners.” (Note in the title sequence that the drama is based on a play of the same title by F. Scott Fitzgerald.)
But there are other scenes that play on the