Junk NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (449)
See it if you remember or want to know more about the Michael Milken era in greed or greed in the US in general and be entertained as well
Don't see it if you have little or no interest in how US financial markets and business work
See it if you want to see an absorbing retelling of Wall Street manipulations and the outcomes. Great sets and masterful staging and ensemble acting.
Don't see it if you have no interest in the financial world and don't want to sit for two and a half hours (with an intermission). Read more
See it if you like well-written shows that have something to say
Don't see it if you are looking for something that's going to make you emotional
See it if you love taut dramas in which you concurrently feel sympathy and revulsion for both sides of a conflict.
Don't see it if if the deluge of financial terms and complexities of insider trading will make your eyes glaze over.
See it if you enjoy fast-paced historically-based (1980s) dramas.
Don't see it if do not like watching stories where characters have compromised integrity and morality for money, power and greed.
See it if u want to a good (necessarily simplified) view into how the mortgage crisis happened & (more broadly) how Wall Street controls all our lives
Don't see it if you want to turn your brain off, you've got to pay attention to follow along. You don't want a reminder how the rich play by different rules Read more
See it if you want a history of junk bonds and want to see some great acting. Although the play is quite long, it is very entertaining.
Don't see it if you are not interested in finance or cannot maintain attention for long periods of time. You need to pay attention to the details.
See it if you appreciate the previous descriptive words
Don't see it if you are not interested in the intricacies of the junk bond world
Critic Reviews (51)
“If the play doesn’t quite have the visceral impact of Aktar's previous plays, 'Junk' is a carefully-plotted and remarkably balanced piece of writing...What’s missing I think is just a bit of the sexiness and decadence that so characterized the era. It’s all just a but too tidy, and the foreshadowing of the recent financial crisis I think is a bit heavy-handed. Nevertheless, 'Junk' represents a brave and major stylistic departure for the fiercely intelligent Mr. Akhtar.”
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"Helmed by Doug Hughes, the drama unfolds as docudrama about the junk bond debacle of the '80s...However, if you like I, did not understand the junk bond market then, you are no more likely to understand it after seeing this production. Why and how it happened exactly seem to matter less than the personalities of the perpetrators. In 'Junk,' Steven Pasquale, boldly imparts qualities of curiosity and mischief into the driven mastermind of the debt trading game."
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"The production replicates the amoral ease generated by the shadowy decisions made by a band of Wall Street newcomers in the 1980s that ultimately landed some of them in jail...Under the spot-on direction of Doug Hughes, the cast of 26 actors moves swiftly through a series of events that revolves around the take-over of Everson Steel...After 'Junk‘s curtain goes down a sad irony hangs in the air: there’s the realization that, all said and done, white collar crime pays."
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