Signature Plays NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (58)
See it if You arent able to pay a lot. Very entertaining at great prices.
Don't see it if I see no reason not to...unless you dont like up close and personal. Not as big as broadway theatres but roomier.
See it if you want to see three gems by playwrights who made their mark in the theatre of the absurd. Some great performances, too.
Don't see it if you like light-weight fluff.
See it if Immaculately directed by Lila Neugebauer, stunning performance and written by the best.
Don't see it if Don't see it if you don't like to think.
See it if you're willing to be challenged by expert staging of 3 brilliant examples of 60s avant-garde theatre, still powerful & relevant today.
Don't see it if you have no interest in examining the human condition, acceptance, memory and identity, explored in captivating, unconventional ways.
See it if handsome stagings of slippery symbolic shorts. Atmospheric & precise, with meticulous attention to rhythm and composition.
Don't see it if these plays are oblique throwbacks with idiosyncratic architecture- sometimes inscrutable, always interesting.
See it if Fond of absurdist plays about death and emotions. Like Edward Albee and do not expect to be hand fed internal meanings
Don't see it if U are a lazy thinker, get confused easily Nudge your neighbor to ask ?????? during the one acts. Cannot follow a plot.
See it if Three absurdist, metaphorical one-acts. Albee's The Sandbox is a nifty short take on death with Fraser, Wood, Somerville and the awesome RJ
Don't see it if Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro is the black experience if seen in an amusement park fun house. Stylish and extravagant with a large cast
See it if You like great productions of obscure plays by important playwrights. If you like theater that you "feel" rather than "understand"
Don't see it if You need to know what a play "means"
Critic Reviews (15)
"Under the accomplished direction of Lila Neugebauer, these works still have the power to engage, amuse and, above all, disturb…In every case, this first-rate creative team has done its job. That is to say, they’ve created unfamiliar worlds that somehow feel deeply, ineffably familiar — the sort of places that you visit as you’re falling asleep. And all the places you’ve ever lived, and all the people you’ve ever been, start to mingle and merge into one eerie, endlessly reflected entity."
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"Although wildly diverse, the three pieces that make up Signature Plays are all grappling with death...Albee, Fornés and Kennedy have been breaking rules since the late ’50s and early ’60s, and today’s most daring playwrights have absorbed their influences—but what a joy to hear this raw music straight from the source. Director Lila Neugebauer delivers each work with a custom-tailored design and approach to performance, treating them not as museum relics."
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"A trio of brilliant plays…In each work, Lila Neugebauer's direction is nothing short of extraordinary. With the impeccable performances of her cast, she combines the diverse tones, techniques, and themes into two humorous and frightening hours of theater...This electric production is a feast for the eyes as well as the brain. It's also further proof that Lila Neugebauer is one of the theater's most versatile and accomplished directors working today."
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"Two of the plays, the Albee and Kennedy entries, premiered in the 1960s, a time when 'downtown theatre' was defined by the kind of experimentation and symbolism that baffled as many as it inspired...This is one of those rare instances where an Edward Albee play can be considered the most accessible of a collection...'Drowning'...is a lethargically-paced play...'Funnyhouse of a Negro' at its time, was a rare instance of a black woman writing about black women."
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"A kind of sampler of the avant-garde from the last several decades...The results are distinctly mixed...'Funnyhouse of a Negro' more than lives up to its bizarre gothic atmosphere, making itself the only one of the three plays on display to feel thoroughly contemporary...If the first half of ‘Signature Plays’ offers less than one has any right to expect, the opportunity to see a first-class production of Kennedy's play is not to be missed."
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"The Sandbox,’ ‘Drowning,’ and ‘Funnyhouse of a Negro’ are all major pieces worthy of examination, and given thoughtful, well-considered mountings here under the direction of Lila Neugebauer, so they do not seem depressing per se. What you get instead is a potent, pungent look at how three different towering American theatre artists have approached the difficult subject of identity and conquered it on their own unique, highly theatrical terms."
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"Directed by Lila Neugebauer, the 'Signature Plays' are beautifully (it's tempting to say ideally) cast...Each offers a distinctive slant on existential angst, finding humor as well as pathos in the characters' suffering...As studies in loneliness, alienation, and unease, the Signature Plays fit together nicely as a single evening...The themes and the zaniness that marked the mid-century avant-garde are so familiar now, on stage and off, that they're no longer viewed as absurd."
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"A wonderful evening of absurdist plays…The star of the evening is director Lila Neugebauer. Any lesser talent may fumble with the three plays’ absurdism, or lose sight of the distinctions between each play’s unique approaches to heighted language. Neugebauer excels in finding relatable ties to unfamiliar worlds...It is her acute dramaturgical eye that ties all three distinct plays together in a cohesive evening of theater."
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