SOURCE: “A Moral Affair,” in New Yorker, September 30, 1996, pp. 95-6.

In the following review, Lahr offers a tempered evaluation of Skylight, which he views as an unsatisfying compromise between “conscience and comfort.”

David Hare has been one of the most visible bricks in the imposing wall of British theatre since he broke through, in 1970, with Slag. His jeremiads about the collapsing state of England and his rants about social justice have been delivered in such varied and successful plays as Plenty (1978), an attack on the corruption of the upper classes; Pravda (1985, with Howard Brenton), an attack on the tabloid press; Racing Demon (1990), to my mind his best play, which attacked the entropy of the Anglican Church: and, most recently, the award-winning Skylight—currently at the Royale Theatre, on Broadway, for a limited engagement—which attacks just about everything else. Here Hare’s invective (“I’m tired of these...