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Clarity and structure become all the more valuable.

From The Refuge Plays, at the Laura Pels.

Were in the midst of a family drama haunted by something else.

The set, by Arnulfo Maldonado, places an ordinary-looking living room in an ominous forest.

Some of his magical-realist touches, like the haunting, give the play a fricative charge.

Others are cutesy and flat.

Watts is warm, and Parker is cold and flinty, gradually revealing bits of her well-protected softer side.

But that, alone, isnt enough to make the epic click into place.

The trilogy has strayed too far from Early.

I could seeThe Refuge Playsaiming at that for Early.

Were meeting her for the first time.

The Refuge Playsis at the Laura Pels Theatre.