Pretensions sink surfers in ‘John From Cincinnati’

June 8, 2007, By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff

“Watching HBO’s surfing drama “John From Cincinnati” is like sitting through a bad play at a tiny experimental theater. The dialogue is loud pretentious nonsense signifying nothing but the creative dangers of mimicking Sam Shepard , Edward Albee , and Samuel Beckett . And the acting is a psychic traffic jam, because the actors don’t understand their characters, because their characters are no more than vague symbols of — what? — being, nothingness, and the fury of being nothing

And as the actors grimace and squeeze out Existential Rage Against the Machine, using the f-word with much forced casualness, you, too, want to rage against a machine — the clock, which is defining your waste of time….” [more]