SOURCE: "Bingo as the Way of Escape, at Dismal Odds," in The New York Times, January 5, 1994, pp. C15, C21.

In the following review of the New York production of The Rez Sisters, Richards criticizes the play for its poorly plotted scenes and adolescent humor.

It's Toronto or bust for the seven impoverished Indians whom the Canadian playwright Tomson Highway calls The Rez Sisters.

That's where "the biggest bingo in the world" is about to be held. As the raucous women envision it with mounting excitement and a feverish gleam in their dark eyes, hitting the $1 million jackpot is how they'll change their hard-scrabble existence on the Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve in Ontario. "When I win" is how they begin their wishful sentences. No one says, "If I win."

You don't need a crystal ball to predict the outcome of Mr. Highway's 1986 play, which opened last night at the...