Milk

Since Emily DeVoti assigns quasimystical powers to the unhomogenized in her new play, it should come as no surprise that she revels in structural lumpiness. Her play starts with farm-in-trouble realism, moves swiftly into city-slickers-in-the-country comedy and detours periodically into a quirky antidomesticity fable. But though DeVoti knows what she wants to do, she doesn't have the technical command to do it. Her family conversations don’t convince, her lyrical stuff doesn’t swing, and we’re left with a profusion of morals—all intoned slowly, or (I swear this is true) mooed.—Helen Shaw