Caroline Heffernan/Photo: John W. Sisson, Jr.

An indulgent, unintelligent and fundamentally lazy production that rolls out one impotent creepy-suspense-thriller cliche after another for more than two painful hours. A couple on the brink of a divorce meet for one last night in the doll-filled home of the  clearly emotionally imbalanced husband, who heads laboriously and awkwardly for a psychotic nervous breakdown that includes a lot of bad singing and loud shouting as his moods shift incomprehensibly from mania to steel-eyed stone-cold killer. Yawn. Then there’s the Norman Bates-like trope with a dead daughter and a marionette; and for the last twenty minutes there’s a lot of running around with knives and guns in the dark that’s just as boring and suspenseless as the rest. It’s honestly hard to imagine why this production was made; the story and dialogue are not only trite and psychologically shallow, but the moments for comic relief fall just as flat.  Acting is valiant, but the characters are one-dimensional to the point of parody, and one wishes the show had just gone all the way and called itself a farce. The running time (which was supposed to be 1:45 but ran for over 2 hours and 15 minute when I saw it) begins to explain the molasses pacing. (Monica Westin)

At DCA Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph, (312) 742-8497. Through November 8.