Junk NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (449)
See it if You appreciate excellent acting , writing, and directing. A serious play with a few ironies
Don't see it if You prefer musicals and lighthearted comedies
See it if You want a lesson in what happened in the Junk Bond Era that lead to the quagmire were in today.
Don't see it if You’re looking for something light and breezy. This is an important piece of theatre that you probably shouldn’t miss. Read more
See it if you want to see a fast-paced, informative play on greed, corruption, and the manipulation of the financial markets.Great acting and staging.
Don't see it if you don't want a realistic education about market manipulation, hostile takeovers, corruption, etc. or just prefer not to think at a show. Read more
See it if You want to see great acting and staging. If you want to get more insight into the funk bond fiasco
Don't see it if You are expecting lush scenery. If you have no interest in real life drama
See it if you like a cleverly staged show on how easy it is to be ambitious, greedy and prejudice and, thereby, corrupted and exploited.
Don't see it if you do not like seeing how corrupt, greedy, prejudiced and self-indulgent people can be - especially - by money. ambition and power. Read more
See it if top notch acting, staging yet informational--fast paced, intelligent and informative theater. A wonderful theater piece.
Don't see it if Have no interest in financial world specifically crises of past few decades and its general impact on US & World economy.
See it if you are interested in learning some things about the manipulation of the financial market. I enjoyed it and learned some history.
Don't see it if you don't want to see a play about the financial world.
See it if You have any interest in how leveraging debt through junk bonds created billions in the 1980’s. Excellent acting and very well executed.
Don't see it if You have no interest in, or knowledge of the 1980’s junk bond industry and the billions created.
Critic Reviews (51)
“Hughes evinces no winning strategy here for provoking our outrage, or even finding much drama...Rather than being revelatory...'Junk' feels merely explanatory. The play comes across less as a text emerging thrillingly to life than as a talking textbook. Its impact is further blunted by some odd casting...So much has been invested in keeping things moving and making the story clear, that there doesn’t seem to have been much energy left to make it exhilarating."
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"Although playwright Ayad Akhtar's moralistic and cynical new drama...does not tell us much we do not already know, there is still something illuminating and undeniably stimulating about watching the multifarious fiscal sins of the ’80s all laid out before you...Especially as produced here, 'Junk" is an epic, strutting, restless, sexually charged, slam-bang-wham piece of work...A show ideal for those who become bored easily with traditional theatrical manufacturing."
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"'Junk' makes the world of 1980s finance utterly riveting, despite a relatively predictable plot...Despite Akhtar’s attempts to complicate our feelings, it’s difficult not to see these already rich people pushing numbers around and tearing apart family-owned businesses as the bad guys...Still, it’s an enthralling production...And despite each character’s path seeming inevitable, their choices — or lack thereof — will stick with you long after the final bow."
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"You call this 'Junk?' I call it solid storytelling...What separates Akhtar’s play is how it so skillfully integrates the speed, size, and detailed plot mechanics of a high-stakes thriller with light comedy and space for the characters to consider how high finance both deviates from and reflects traditional American values...Even while many of the characters are underdeveloped, 'Junk' is engrossing from start to finish, and Hughes’ sleek, high-powered and fluid production never lags in momentum."
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"There's really nothing in this play that we haven't seen before, but it's a slick, highly polished work with the not so subtle message that greed is not good!...Akhtar fully establishes himself as an extremely insightful writer with an uncanny ability to synthesize our darkest impulses...For all the insidery twists and turns, it's impressively coherent...'Junk' is a familiar story, but for anyone with the stomach and head for another lesson in Wall Street avarice, this one's worth the investment."
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"Not only the most important play you'll see all year, but the most entertaining...Shakespearean in its outsize scope and dramatis personae...'Junk' may remind audiences of 'The Big Short,' both in its masterful elucidation of a confusing subject and its shocking depiction of the corrupting influence of money. But 'Junk' is even more powerful because those doing the corrupting are in the room with us, and a small voice in the back of our heads is cheering them on. "
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“Akhtar spins a tough, muscular melodrama about the finance jungle, directed at breakneck speed by Hughes...It may initially strike audiences as a twice-told tale...But the playwright has plenty of fresh points to make...’Junk’ is also a much richer piece because Akhtar has taken the long view, connecting the dots between 1985 and today...Cheers to Lincoln Center Theater for producing this rangy, mordant new play and giving it the first-class production it deserves.”
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"Akhtar has done his homework...Akhtar weaves the many threads of his plot into a complex tapestry, played out in a dazzling array of intersecting scenes...'Junk,' well-acted by a fine-tuned ensemble and spinningly directed by Hughes, threatens at times to be engulfed by its complicated story and hand-to-hand combat that reflect Akhtar's research and his efforts at developing the many characters and subplots."
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