Pinteresque? Hardly. Wallace couldn't hope to achieve Pinter's economy of language or knack for evoking mood and relationships in a million years. It's a lousy, poorly written play that relies heavily on its "shocking" reveal but doesn't really achieve any emotional resonance. The acting is good enough, but there's not much that can be done with such a bad piece of writing. And I don't know how "controversial" it really is -- it's hardly treading new ground, there has been plenty of art about this topic going back to the ancient Greeks...
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
AC~ you're points are well-taken, especially the lack of economy of language. It did evoke a "The Homecoming" threatening tension,for me. I also feel the ending was too tidy, but I was very much drawn in throughout the play. Thanks for your thoughts .