In Thomas Bradshaw's potent and disturbing new play, Dawn, now at the Flea Theate, an alcoholic works his way to sobriety, but as he reunites with his estranged family and sees things more clearly, he may wish that he stayed a drunkard. The work wrestles with a number of hot-button topics, and poses moral and ethical questions that would seem to be clear cut, but are surprisingly murky.

In the first half of the play, Hampton (Gerry Bamman) struggles with his alcoholism, going to great lengths to hide just how much he's drinking from his much younger wife, Susan (Irene Walsh). Director Jim Simpson stages these early scenes in a farcical manner, engendering laughs from the audience in additio[...]