The Screwtape Letters NYC Reviews and Tickets

"This intellectual source material could make for a ponderous stage production, but the show is terrific–animated and engaging. In place of dramatic tension it serves up a thick irony...McLean gives a brilliant performance as 'His Abysmal Sublimity' Screwtape. In lesser hands the role would be deadly, but Mr. McLean, who also directs the show, keeps us absorbed throughout...'The Screwtape Letters' is quite an accomplishment, intellectually and emotionally absorbing."
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"As satirical and clever as it is, 'The Screwtape Letters' is a sermon at heart, and sermons are rarely the stuff of riveting drama. The humor of this stage adaptation is mostly cerebral, and a large part of what makes it successful is an energetic performance by Mr. McLean that brings some semblance of action to the stage. Karen Eleanor Wight is aptly reptilian as Toadpipe. One doesn’t have to be a Christian to enjoy 'The Screwtape Letters.'"
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"McLean’s portrayal can’t help but charm an audience…Yet McLean’s acting cannot fully divert an audience from the repetitive nature of the 90-minute piece, as Screwtape dictates letter after letter. With co-director Jeffrey Fiske, McLean has invented ways to add theatricality and diversion to the evening, and they largely work — until they, too, become repetitive."
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"The ideas are supple and surprising ones…Harris makes a meal of the text, visibly savoring every juicy word and ripe irony…'The Screwtape Letters' cannot be considered a complete success…McLean, who directed, has done just about everything possible to keep things lively…However, none of these touches are sufficient against a script that begins intriguingly but cannot escape the fact that it is essentially a tract."
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"Vibrantly presented and impeccably performed by an accomplished actor, it is fitfully entertaining due to its repetitive structure and inherent prolixity...Theatergoers unfamiliar with (and even those familiar) the nature of 'The Screwtape Letters' may become restless despite all of its accomplished elements. After the play’s first 20 minutes, its format is clear and there’s still a good deal of it left."
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"Although the material verges on repetitive and pedantic at times, Brent Harris, in the role of Screwtape, keeps the energy flowing through his full-embodied performance and masterful musicality of the language. Realizing Hell has no time or space, Harris dominates and navigates quite an emotional journey…For a short evening that will engage your mind, body, and spirit, head on over to the Pearl Theatre."
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"A stylish (if conventionally “devilish”) performance by Harris..., highly expressive pantomime from Wight, imaginative staging, striking lighting..., an unusual soundscape..., and a chilling set...do all they can to bring this talky play to life. Much of it is intriguing, provocative, and, to many (if not to me), laugh-worthy, but once its sermonizing point is made some may find that going from one letter to another, with only a single voice, tends toward dramaturgic stasis."
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"A devilishly funny theatrical adaptation…This production is tight and swiftly paced. The grisly rear wall of Screwtape's hellish office immediately sets a disturbing tone…Lewis wrote insightfully about how easy it was for people to be led astray by the small things in life…McLean and Wight make a diabolical duo, and Lewis' philosophical insights into human nature are cleverly conveyed in 'The Screwtape Letters'."
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