The Ferryman (NYC)

for a previous production "Butterworth has done it again, this time with another rural drama of mighty magnitude set across a single, darkening day...This is a three-hour feast populated with an even more ambitious 22 characters...There is a new warmth about Butterworth’s writing – which eschews the self-aware dialogue of yore and taps his own Irish-Catholic provenance for a vitality that memorably manifests itself in wild Dionysiac outbreaks of dancing...Miss this and you’ve missed a marvel." Full Review

for a previous production "A triumphant show that fully justifies the hype...Mendes’s richly textured production his farmhouse kitchen is a place teeming with vitality...There are some similarities here to Butterworth’s last smash hit, 'Jerusalem,' not least a sense of the mystique of rural life. Yet 'The Ferryman' has its own distinct tang of humour and menace. A feast of intricate storytelling, it’s absorbing, soulful and ultimately shattering." Full Review

for a previous production "Huge in the scale of its cast, of its ambition, of its rich themes. But above all, massive in its capacity to hold an audience rapt, in silence, telling them a story...The story is so compellingly intricate that it would be a shame to give more away. Butterworth's writing, both flexible and controlled, makes every moment, whether funny, tender or tragic worth leaning forward to catch...Mendes' direction brings poetry to the most immensely detailed naturalism." Full Review

for a previous production "A rich, serious, deeply involving play about the shadows of the past and the power of silent love...What gives Butterworth’s play such shattering force is its Hardyesque love of rural rituals and its compassionate exploration of unspoken love...The power of Mendes’s terrific production...lies in its ability to combine scrupulous naturalism with a sense of the mysterious." Full Review

for a previous production "A mighty affair, sending stories, characters, history, politics, and love skittering across the floor with the flair of a gambler rolling dice. It’s a stunning piece of writing: teeming with life; haunted by death...Butterworth takes the great family drama and makes it his own...He offers a masterclass in observing the classical unities, using dramatic irony, and building tension...This is a magnificent new play that uses, brilliantly, the vitality of theatre to express the deadly legacy of ... Full Review

for a previous production "All the fuss was largely justified...The production keeps warm, expert control of the mercurial moods and temperamental traffic of the vast family...Some very well written scenes of late-night teenage boozing explore the tensions between peaceable rural behaviour of the Carney lads and the harder ways of their visiting Corcoran cousins...The piece is not as original as 'Jerusalem,' but it has the feel of unearthed, instant classic." Full Review

for a previous production "This enormous, shattering eruption of a play...Vast, a play that's formally conventional but has an ambition that's out of this world...It succeeds. But despite the teeming cast and interwoven plot lines it remains intimate...Even though lengthy stretches are nothing more than generations bickering at the breakfast table, nothing feels wasted, every strand is respected, Mendes choreographs everything to perfection...Left me genuinely stunned." Full Review

for a previous production "Though 'The Ferryman' is compelling even in its quiet moments, the play doesn’t entirely justify its mammoth running time and the violent tying together of the various threads feels a little rapid – if genuinely shocking. The last few moments will knock the wind out of you. In his mixing of the mythic and the modern...there’s a sense too that Butterworth is repurposing some of his former tricks – but it doesn’t really matter: they’re brilliant tricks and that’s what all magicians do." Full Review

for a previous production "A ripping thriller in a big family home, stuffed with eccentricity and black comedy, it swells into an expansive examination of Republican history, politics and identity, as tied up with the IRA...It’s a tumbling and tumultuous play, one that swerves off into storytelling, song and dance, and debate, without taking its eye off the need for suspense. It’s a thriller that bursts the bounds of its genre, but never forgets what makes the form tick...The tension is as electric as it is symbolic." Full Review

for a previous production "A classic, bustling domestic comedy in which an extended family lives in contented close quarters and everybody chips in to help. Of course, in this clan, even the little ones swear like sailors on a bender...Butterworth specializes in making what might be too much from anybody else feel somehow exactly right. Life as he portrays it is so expansive, only myth and melodrama can accommodate its dimensions." Full Review