Paralyzed by Caution

TITLE: LATER LIFE

AUTHOR: A.R. GURNEY

WHERE: OFF-BROADWAY

THE BOTTOM LINE: A wistful comedy suggests that the biggest emotional risk is trying to avoid emotional risks.

Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? The question is not exactly new, but it has rarely been posed more deftly and disarmingly than in the 21st work of the wistful comedist A.R. Gurney, whose best previous plays (Sweet Sue, Love Letters) also centered on the disruptive consequences of love unpursued. Gurney is often pegged as an elegist for the waning Wasp. In Later Life he makes...

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