The Ferryman (NYC) NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (1,080)
See it if You go to theater to experience staged drama in person and live in front of you. This is a classic theatre focused on a reckoning.
Don't see it if Your knee jerk answer when someone asks you “how’d you like the show?” Is: “it was long.” That’s the measure of a hot dog, not a play. Read more
See it if you want to see an epic drama that is destined to become a classic. Superb acting. The 3+ hours running time flies by ever so quickly!
Don't see it if you can's sit for a long period of time. You have no interest in The Troubles in Ireland.
See it if If you enjoy finely crafted plays with excellent acting and great attention to detail
Don't see it if If you do not enjoy longer plays Read more
See it if This is a mesmerizing play. It evolve slowly, in real time, gradually revealing this serious issues at its core
Don't see it if This is a very long play. You need to be able to listen to highly accented English for well over three hours.
See it if you like Irish drama.
Don't see it if you find Irish accents hard to understand. Read more
See it if you want the best play this season! Brilliant writing, acting and staging. Irish storytelling at its best.
Don't see it if You can't sit still for three hours plus. The time actually goes by in a flash. I could have sat through a few hours more. Read more
See it if great story line and acting
Don't see it if accents a little hard to understand
See it if you love theatre. This may be one of the greatest modern plays of all time.
Don't see it if you are not too keen on watching plays with lengthy dialogues and storytelling with thick foreign accents. Read more
Critic Reviews (78)
“May be Butterworth's most ambitious work to date, and it is, to my mind, the first that instantly looks like a masterpiece. Time will tell if that judgment sticks, but, for now, one can enjoy a drama that, in its breadth, canny construction, and sleight-of-hand storytelling towers over everything else currently on Broadway...In Sam Mendes' production -- masterfully orchestrating an ensemble of 21, plus a baby and a live rabbit -- character after character leaves an indelible mark."
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"A production that embraces comedy, drama, and melodrama in equal measure...It is richly imagined, smartly directed by Sam Mendes, and smashingly performed by a cast of 22 adults, teenagers, children, and one infant...It is all so incredibly Dickensian, yet all so true-to-life...Butterworth has outdone himself here. A brilliant wordsmith...This is an ensemble work in every sense of the word...An absolutely sensational theatrical experience."
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"'The Ferryman,' now with American actors in 17 of the 22 roles, is every bit as powerful as it was when it opened on Broadway in October...The struggle between husband and wife, as brought out in the last-act dissection of their estrangement, has never played so well for me...It is a great pleasure to discover that this production remains just as strong with the replacement cast of American actors."
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"There’s no denying that 'The Ferryman' is epic, and undeniably Butterworth’s best play...A wrenching family drama, whose most moving moments are its most spare and most intimate...Director Sam Mendes is a master at orchestrating chaotic scenes...You’ll find yourself on the edge of your seat during even the most sedate scenes...It ends so ferociously, in such a glorious burst of action, predictions, and promises, that a follow-up would not be unwelcome."
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“The latest stunning tour de force by Butterworth...is winning over audiences...It does it with a freshness and generosity of perspective that feel positively Shakespearian and powerfully relevant...Though the cast is extensive, each character is memorable and distinctly drawn...Only a truly remarkable play can encompass and transcend genre as this one does...’The Ferryman’ meticulously but joyously builds a minutely precise and sympathetic portrait of Irish rural life in the 80s.”
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"The breathtakingly good, devastating drama by Jez Butterworth that instantly kicks the Broadway season into high gear...It is most deeply a beautifully realized portrait of an extended Irish family living, and loving, through the long aftermath of a tragedy. The play is almost as exuberantly funny as it is powerfully theatrical, and its marvelous cast infuses the play with such life-affirming light...'The Ferryman' explores with a theatrical vitality and depth as painful as it is unforgettable."
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"A tense political drama...While describing 'The Ferryman' as an epic is not a cliché, the interactions between all those characters, in and out of the spacious family room and kitchen and up and down a sky high stairway, dish up plenty of Irish story-telling cliches...So filled with rich dialogue and well defined, marvelously portrayed characters that, even when they lean towards the stereotypical and clichéd, their words and actions manage to feel integral and, yes, necessary."
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"Jez Butterworth's 'The Ferryman' is not a play. It is an experience, a rare experience whose aftermath will linger for days, if not weeks, in the minds of those who see it. Butterworth takes the audience into the heart of a loving family in a story that veers off into ghastly violence. He questions if it will ever end, but the title, itself, a reference to Charon who, in Greek mythology, ferries the dead across the River Styx to Hades, hints that deaths will continue."
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