Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (541)
See it if If you want to see nathan lane. Some good comedic moments.
Don't see it if If you want a really good comedy, or something worth your money. Most jokes went flat, most jokes were pervie. Terrible shiw.
See it if you like crazy absurdist works. Sometimes funny, philosophical, political...and sometimes gross, puerile, repetitive. An extended sketch.
Don't see it if you want trad'l theater. Strg acting, but LOUD (shouting). Scatological humor abounds. Knowing Titus A helps. Ode to Power of Art (and Fart)
See it if you want to laugh-Nathan Lane at his best as clown, fool and maid, with equal support by Kristine Nielsen on a great set with surprises.
Don't see it if you do not enjoy raw humor set in 400 B.C. that relieves the horrors of war with brilliantly written words, marvelous rhyming and timing.
See it if you enjoy a raunchy and funny sequel to Shakespeare's play. Very clever and entertaining. There is some gross talk but also very witty.
Don't see it if you don't like talk of farts and private parts. The dialogue is very funny but much is off color. Read more
See it if Funny and raunchy play with dead bodies, blood. Not something you see every day.
Don't see it if Rhyming, Blood, Dead bodies (Not Real), fart jokes, Raunchy humor. Someone needs to get rid of the bodies.
See it if u want to see 3 masterful performances in a subversive, multi-layered, satirical, morbid, comical, poignant, thought-provoking, unique play.
Don't see it if u seek a traditional theatrical experience; ur squeamish & unable to fully embrace raunchy humor in the service of very smart lampoonery. Read more
See it if Nathan lane is my hero forever. Taylor Mac is a superstar. The set alone is worth viewing. The audience loved the show
Don't see it if BUT..... It is not my kind of humor. With 3 major performers it is a yelling contest,
See it if you're looking for something completely original and don't mind fart jokes and gore (though the gore is not realistic).
Don't see it if you prefer clear language. The show isn't terribly difficult to follow, but there are moments where the characters lapse into poetic verse.
Critic Reviews (48)
"Where carnage and camp coexist — if not exactly in peace, then in a constructive dialectic...For me, at least, the most convincing and powerful moments came when the performances aligned with the gravity of the premise. Gary’s speech about the power of art to create new realities was one such moment for Mr. Lane: You could feel the hope in the hyperbole he spoke of...Strange bird or not, I’m glad it’s here. Not everything perfect is true, and not everything messy isn’t."
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"An outrageous mix of the absurd and the grotesque, designed to make audiences gape...Lane is tremendous, and Julie White is screamingly funny as the play’s third character, Carol...While George C. Wolfe’s production delivers all the flatulence a person could desire, there are stretches where it runs out of gas...The design elements are all first-class, but impressive through Wolfe’s staging is, a smaller and scrappier production might better capture 'Gary'’s essence."
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"Though it’s Nathan Lane’s name that tops the marquee and Nielsen’s that comes close behind, it’s all but impossible to imagine ‘Gary’ without White’s brilliantly kooky antics. Of the show’s game trio of actors, she’s the one living most comfortably in its heightened, hyperactive yet pensive, tragical-comical-scatalogical world...Despite the fact that Wolfe’s production is pitched pretty much unrelentingly at 11, ‘Gary’ isn’t as funny or as biting as it could be."
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"It is the work of a real writer expressing depths in a popular form...I have never liked Lane and White as wholeheartedly as I did watching them in 'Gary,' mostly because of their and Neilsen’s admiration for the script, and where it takes them as performers. Mac’s words illuminate them...This show is part burlesque, part lyric. Although I am not especially attracted to the former genre, this doesn’t detract from the lyricism we hear and see.”
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"Unfortunately, despite the tremendous abundance of talent both onstage and off, the production is mainly notable for being the most batsh*t-crazy thing to be seen on Broadway in many a moon...An attenuated and increasingly tiresome sketch. To be sure, there are plenty of laughs, at least for a while. All three actors deliver virtuosic comic performances...Wolfe demonstrates here that farce isn't his strong suit...The proceedings feel much longer than their 95 minutes."
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"The political satire is pretty much spelled out...But this is low comedy, so expect plenty of fart jokes and penis wagging and doubles entendre interlaced with the sweet humanity and higher-toned political satire...There’s no shortage of art and craft in this offbeat show; but there’s also a limit to how much goofiness a comedy can support, and Mac may have gone over his limit. The jokes start to feel lame and the crude burlesque routines seem a bit cruel."
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"Lane almost justifies the play during the first half hour as he bumbles around the mound...The play relies on the supposition that all these goings-on have some weighty import—if only they could be properly understood...Perhaps Mac has read too much Walter Benjamin about the salvationary power of death-saturated Baroque tragic drama. What Mac offers us instead is an exercise in self-indulgence, with a dollop of facile allusion and a dose of bad faith."
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"What Mac excretes from the feast is a pungent, runny substance that won’t be to everyone’s taste. Still, give this prodigious artist credit for trying to transmute the Bard’s crassest, bloodiest play into an ethical work of theater...The most enjoyable bits here are visual...Lord knows we need a laugh, and the piece intermittently delivers, thanks to the immensely graceful director George C. Wolfe and the most accomplished farceurs in New York theater."
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