Bill W. and Dr. Bob

You know those made-for-Mormon plays about Joseph Smith? His trials, tribulations and eventual triumph over the world? Well, this play is a lot like that, except it's for die-hard 12-steppers. The two playwrights are psychologists whose previous plays include the opus We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Men and Women. Bill W. and Dr. Bob is pure propaganda for the healing powers of Alcoholics Anonymous (the group’s creepy, anachronistic religious content is downplayed for comic effect). No scene is without its thudding didactic purpose, and all dialogue is so distressingly on-the-nose that one would think the play's a bloody-faced boxing match. By the end of its tedious 2 1/2 hours, it’s become less a play about alcoholism and healing than a horror story about the hell-on-earth of a life lived without a single unexpressed thought. Still, the play did have its own pathos. While I felt little for the cardboard characters—even Dr. Bob, charismatically played by Gary Powell—I did, finally, feel bad for the actors who had to play them.

Where: The CoHo Theater
Phone: 715-1114
Address: 2257 NW Raleigh St.
Website: https://www.boxofficetickets.com/go/event?id=212485