Third

And Professor Laurie Jameson doesn't like his jockish, jingoistic attitude

He is, as she puts it, "a walking red state"

Believing that Third's sophisticated essay on King Lear couldn't possibly have been written by such a specimen, she reports his plagiarism to the college's Committee of Academic Standards

But is Prof Jameson's accusation justified?

Or is she casting Third as the villain in her own struggle with her relationships, her age and the increasingly polarized political environment?

"It's the certainty of uncertainty in life that makes Third so affecting ... it exhales a gentle breath of autumn, a rueful awareness of death and of seasons past, that makes it impossible to dismiss" ~ NY Times

"[Wasserstein] is in a reflective mood here. Funny and occasionally biting, the playwright poignantly marks the passage of time, not only for her conflicted heroine but for several of the other lovingly drawn characters on stage ... There are no outright villains but there certainly are shades of gray, some darker than others" ~ Associated Press

"Wasserstein's new play - her best in years - is thematically richer and more emotionally satisfying than any mere political screed ... a story of a woman's self-reassessment as she heads into the third part of her life" ~ Variety