OUTSIDE MULLINGAR, Couldn't Get Outside Soon Enough

Outside Mullingar is Patrick Shanley's new play set in Ireland is as entertaining as a wake.  Outside Mullingar is performed without an intermission.  This made the play interminable.  The 4 characters live  on contiguous farmlands.  The only way anyone leaves either property is by dying.  I felt planted in purgatory.  One farm is owned & run by father/son Anthony (Brian O'Byrne) & Tony Reilly.  The Muldoon's farm is managed by Rosemary (Debra Messing) & just widowed mother, Aoife Muldoon.  While the elders commiserate their losses & dismal futures, 42 yr. old Anthony & 35 yr. old Rosemary  cantankerously argue outside in the rain each telling the other they should move away and live elsewhere.  They're perfect for each other; both being full of blarney.  Incredulously, Anthony still pines for a spurned love @ 16 and Rosemary has maintained a grudge since the age 7 after he shoved her. The deathbed contrition from father to son is pitiless.  And, the aggressive, last resort romantic plea from Rosemary is buffoonish.  Shanley has won the Pulitzer & Tony Award for his brilliant work, DOUBT.   In OUTSIDE MULLINGAR he has written a play that is painfully predictable, non-lyrical and totally lacking in any Irish charm.   Mrs. Muldoon says "The middle is the best part." If there were a middle, I would have left & gone outside.