BWW Reviews: OUR NEW GIRL is Only Scantly Thrilling

The brief opening scene of Nancy Harris’ Our New Girl, described by the Atlantic Theater Company as a psychological thriller, contains one of those chilling moments that causes audience members to impulsively gasp, avert their eyes or feel the tingle of their own hairs standing on end. It immediately leaps into a confrontation scene that heightens interest in where exactly the Irish playwright is going. Alas, by the play’s unclear conclusion it seems that she’s going nowhere thrilling and perhaps only a tad psychological. Taking place in the kitchen a well-off British couple (fine work by set designer Timothy R. Mackabee), the evening concerns the troubled relationship between plastic surgeon Richard (CJ Wilson) and his wife, Hazel (Mary McCann), a former lawyer struggling to make a profit with her at-home business selling imported olive oil. (The increasing abundance of boxes of the stuff comes off as an attempt at a running gag.)