MinorTricksterDeity

See it if You want to see the work of Richard Jones, whose epic stagings are masterful.

Don't see it if You want, y'know, something that felt emotionally viable.

Also Jones' staging is exquisite - no one had any doubts about that. Shinn's translation/adaptation though feels really deeply hollow and just plain boring? Horvath is a fantastic writer and this production did his own epic mind justice in the visuals, but the text felt so limp.... Read more Read less

See it if You want some genuinely fun, absolutely intelligent yet playful theater. It's truly great.

Don't see it if You have no soul. You want "adult" fare. Bah, adult fare!

Also Slava Polunin's lovely quilt of the sad clowns that populate SLAVA'S SNOWSHOW is a lovely, avant-garde, clowning carousel of wonder. It's got a fucking snowstorm for Christ's sake! It's somehow Beckettian, weep-worthy, aesthetically astounding and yet such a lovely time altogether. The 100 minutes it occupies is too short but it feel like you've been completely entranced and invited into this fun, sad-funny world.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see a masterwork by a forgotten master. Like theater that features a diverse, all-female cast.

Don't see it if You're some kinda misogynist, don't like walking around the theater, need something straightforward.

Also Someone once described FEFU AND HER FRIENDS as a "metaphysical murder mystery" and it feels very much that way. It's very very weird when it gets there and operates in a way that lures us into a sense of "quirky?" but then quirky becomes outright horrific when the final few minutes kicks in and makes you question just what we saw.

All hail Fornes, may this be the first of many revivals of her work.... Read more Read less

See it if You like Alanis Morissette. You enjoy jukeboxes. You like your musical theater fare to be contemporary and with music that sounds modern.

Don't see it if You don't want to deal with modern problems, have no patience for (mostly) white families being self-destructive, don't like jukeboxes.

Also JAGGED LITTLE PILL has a lot going for it. Tom Kitt's orchestrations are fantastic and lift the music out of its album rock world and into that of musical theater. The idea is so well-intentioned but its execution....eh. The design and direction were a disappointment compared to the performances, music, and choreography. Some of the performances were complete standouts and truly deserved of the applause and praise. If only the show didn't drop ideas and pick up new ones every which way.... Read more Read less

See it if You want a wide-in-scope, empathetic view on difficult lives in difficult places.

Don't see it if You need short, brief explanations. You need pure catharsis at the end.

Also HALFWAY BITCHES... is as Guirgis as it gets - a lot of fantastic insults, a lot of fun characters, and some true heartbreakers in the form of people trying to find their way. Somewhere between gritty poetry and human epic, it's a wallop of a play. Only thing is that it's 3.5 hours and could do with a trim, and the directing felt flat in a few spots, but overall an enthralling, very watchable work.... Read more Read less

See it if You like Irish humour, want a dark story told in interesting ways, and some complicated characters.

Don't see it if You don't like gallows humor, unusual storytelling styles, or furniture on stage.

Also PUMPGIRL is a heck of a script, and the story - told through three, not-quite-linear, never intersecting monologues except in a few wee moments, tells an interesting story of small-town dreams and small-town mentality. However, the Irish Rep's studio stage is a wee one and even a chamber play like this felt deeply constricted by actors mostly standing about in one spot.... Read more Read less

See it if You want a non-traditional, lushly scored chamber musical with deep emotional waves.

Don't see it if You need something more traditional. You don't like chamber shows. You need more than 2 people in the cast.

Also This was a genuinely interesting musical theater experiment. I don't get what people have been saying about Act One, it's very clear in it's story, it just meanders a bit. Act Two's libretto by Harrison David Rivers is the superior of the two. The score operates on a lot of operatic modes which absolutely works for this material and the way the show is structured - it has a sung-through quality that reminds me of "Caroline, or Change" but a lushness in the score that unfortunately results in a very monotonous sound sometimes. The cast was great, Jack Cummings III's direction kept it feeling like internal emotional structures were coming through and boy, when this show hurts, it hurts.... Read more Read less

See it if You're really into Steppenwolf's acting style. You like Tracy Letts. You're older.

Don't see it if You're sick and tired of old, white man theater.

Also Did we really need a white liberal middle-aged dude centered in a play where basically he's too good for the world and hurt, complicated, yet somehow 2-dimensional women are to blame? Was it a better take on a midlife crisis comedy? Sure. Were the jokes funny? Yeah, quite a lot. But wow it's great to know all women are broken or overoptimistic and that just RUINS men. I know we're supposed to view Wheeler as a douche searching for himself but this play could have simply ended when he finally got shut down by his original-new girlfriend. Don't get me started on his 26-year-old second girlfriend who is basically the "hippies" he's so scared of and a sweltering mix of every millennial stereotype swallowed into one. Did Bill Maher write this disdainful piece of wish-fulfillment?... Read more Read less

See it if You want a really smart, actually dexterous debate play.

Don't see it if You need your empathy sated.

Also Will Arbery's HEROES is, at its core, a deeply sympathetic and smart play with the right amount of creepy. Danya Taymor directed it masterfully and it actually tested the limits of my empathy, made me laugh out loud, and brilliantly engaged with the structure it set out to embody. It's not a play that's easy to bring in, but it holds itself against you and demands recognition.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see the continuing work of Peter Brook and three great actors play on stage.

Don't see it if You need a set. Or something more lush in its design/dramaturgy.

Also It's an interesting experience - a mix of fable, ode to the theater, unexpected where it needed to be, funny and endearing where we don't quite expect it to be. The live pianist was an unusual, not always successful, touch though.... Read more Read less

See it if You want an interesting update on Medea and an unflinching take on America's immigration stories.

Don't see it if You don't have a drop of empathy in your bones.

Also MOJADA is, firstly, a more subdued adaptation of Medea in terms of its dramatic structure and dramaturgy - and that helps move the story along, but the excellent text felt oddly slowed down. Some moments just felt more languid than necessary.... Read more Read less

See it if You like contemporary restaging of classic work.

Don't see it if You want more from your Chekhov remixes and aren't a fan of well-produced mediocre scripts.

Also This could have been a great play, but it felt like it was piggybacking on Three Sisters and heightening a lot of absurdity in a way that wasn't really that rewarding. The physical gags are hilarious, Trip Cullman's staging is damn fine (and I was a big fan of the set), but after a while I wanted the somberness of the original. Act Two was much better than Act One - if only the latter had more of the former.... Read more Read less

See it if Just go fucking see it.

Don't see it if You are uncomfortable with sex, queerness, race, or want conventional subject matter.

Also I'm really happy this show exists. It breaks all the taboos of subject matter with a heart-lifting score that pulls no punches and holds nothing back. We need more musicals like this.... Read more Read less

See it if You want something to chew on.

Don't see it if You need theater that explains itself immediately to you.

Also I have to say this and this is the best way I can articulate this, as a white audience member - go see Fairview, and afterwards, I hope you understand that there are spaces that you, as a white audience member, should not encroach upon.... Read more Read less

See it if You like to see Shakespeare done-up in the best way Shakespeare can with some amazing performances.

Don't see it if You aren't willing to stick out a 2.5 hour Shakespearean comedy.

Also First things first, for whatever the reason I have never been the biggest fan of "Much Ado About Nothing" and this was my first experience seeing it staged. That being said, it being staged made me appreciate the play more and the fieriness + crackling wit that comes to the surface. Danielle Brooks is great, as are her castmates, I just wish Kenny Leon's staging didn't feel as underdeveloped as it did. Some moments were just perfect, others felt like they hit too slow or hit too fast. The overall concept (that of a modern Georgia-set "Much Ado...") was fun but it felt as if Leon thought it just spoke for itself without any more direction attached.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see newer, brighter takes on Shakespeare. Also Glenda Jackson.

Don't see it if You don't like more imagistic, less naturalistic takes on Shakespeare. And if you can't handle 3.5 hours of straight material.

Also King Lear is considered a mountaintop for actors and Glenda Jackson is now one of the few who have conquered it twice. She's a storm all her own and Sam Gold clearly knows how to put that front and center. Some aspects of the production didn't ring for me (why does Edgar have AirPods? Why do the sisters all have different accents?) but as a whole it's a much more interesting and intense interpretation of 'King Lear' than any version I've seen as of late.... Read more Read less

See it if You want lushly realized, very well-staged musical classics.

Don't see it if You want the sexual and gender politics to be up to date, because albeit one coup d'theatre, it may go over older people's heads.

Also Let me be honest and say that I have a really genuine fondness for 'My Fair Lady' - it was one of the first movie musicals I encountered and I loved it. However, even with Bartlett Sher doing his best to get complex performances out of every one in this cast in a visually gorgeous revival, it still reads as problematic. I love the tunes and the production but I wouldn't mind if we retired this gemstone.... Read more Read less

See it if You want intelligent, thoughtful meditations on deep sociocultural traumas embedded in us all.

Don't see it if You need very linear, very clear theater and have no patience for philosophical discourse or metatheatrics

Also First things first, Christopher Chen is an amazing playwright, but this isn't his best play. Passage is very much on the "ritual" end of what theater can be but would have felt more powerful and effective without some of the metatheatrical elements that's tied to the work. The staging was well thought, the stagecraft itself was clever and minimal without distraction, and it unveiled unique modes and norms tied to colonialism I had not previously considered before - about the minutiae of our interactions with people we knowingly oppress, the inherent "maleness" of colonialism, and how internal faults are exploited for state benefit.... Read more Read less

See it if You like shows that are funny until they're not.

Don't see it if You like your comedy to be of the quick, harmless variety.

Also If you blindfolded me and told me to guess who wrote this play, Bess Wohl would be my first guess. She has a very distinctive voice and a fascinating approach to life's really big questions. She also captures the minutiae of how people act by themselves and undoing "big secret reveals". However, it is a bit on the slow end and feels like it needs a bit of a trim.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see some prime avant-garde staging from a brilliant, deeply thoughtful director.

Don't see it if You have some bizarre vendetta against camera work.

Also Prime adaptable material gets a prime adaptation from Lee Hall & Ivo van Hove - a frightening, wild examination of our modern day devotion and willingness to be converted by the media.... Read more Read less

See it if You like deeply strange, unusual takes on social power structures.

Don't see it if You get frightened or have no patience for absurdist, Pirandello-ish imagery

See it if You enjoy socially relevant, irreverent, no-punches-pulled theater with a zany, diverse score.

Don't see it if You like your theater more entertaining than socially conscious or have little patience for fringey, experimental work.

See it if You enjoy genre theater, want to see a play written by a fresh, deeply original voice.

Don't see it if The play kinda suffers from a lot of ambition and ideas but too little dramaturgical space, albeit great performances and direction.

See it if You want to see the rare revival of Tony Kushner's brilliant first play.

Don't see it if You want something short and sweet. It's a very cerebral, long work.

Also I have such mixed feelings about A BRIGHT ROOM... mostly because I can't tell if Kushner's new additions are brilliantly audacious or an overcalculated misstep. On one hand, the Zillah/(and now Xillah!) scenes are more vibrant than ever before. On the other, it makes the Berlin sections of the play feel laggy and underbaked. So go in, decide for yourself. But if you leave not wanting to change the world - through art, through politics, through love - you are really far gone.... Read more Read less

See it if You want an epic masterstroke from a writer of uncompromising ambition, from a director with a truly, deeply loving staging.

Don't see it if You need something short. You have issues with gay stories (it's 2019, you should fucking not). You have no patience.

Also Okay, first and foremost - as much as I enjoyed THE INHERITANCE, I couldn't help but feel it's 6hr and 25min runtime was definitely overlong. It would have done better as a 5 hour epic piece. Phew, with that out of the way, the play is such a heartfelt look at gay life now and the stories are such heartbreakers and tearjerkers that it's a hard play not to at least feel for. Stephen Daldry's direction was pitch perfect, and it helped lift the drier bits of Matthew Lopez's otherwise absorbing script.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see a treasure of Yiddish theater restored.

Don't see it if You need English. Or something more mature - it's essentially Jewish Cinderella.

See it if You like Lucas Hnath. You're very patient and are willing to wait for a payoff.

Don't see it if You dislike extra characters and overwriting. You can't handle being messed with by a play.

Also The work plays a lot like a Gothic thriller. The structure is very similar to one, and the deeply engaging acting lures us in like fish on a line. My only problem was the overwritten first half of the play, which felt distracting and too close to dinner-table plays. But when the play finally kicks into high gear and fully embraces its Gothic nature, then we're in for a much more interesting ride.... Read more Read less

See it if You enjoy post-dramatic, quirky, heartwearming theater.

Don't see it if You need something....normal. You need a better take on this script than the current director's.

Also Will Eno's script is a charmer, and one of his most straightforward in some ways yet just as metaphysical, metatheatrical, and sweet on life as his plays tend to be. However, Kenny Leon's very straight staging messes with this underlying material and turns THE UNDERLYING CHRIS into what seems to just be a quirky play about life. It's a lot more, if only they paired this show with a better director at the helm.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see great adaptations of great novels. Like Thomas Ostermeier. Want a smart take on trauma.

Don't see it if You need English (it's supertitled).

Also I left History of Violence considering the ways this work chose to tell its story and have to say it's incredibly unlike anything you'll see on American stages outside of places like St. Ann's Warehouse - it's slow, but the slowness capsizes us into an exhaustion that's not unlike the one our hero feels in the wake of endless questioning and lack of empathy.... Read more Read less

See it if You want really interesting, no-frills theater.

Don't see it if You need an explained, long, purely visible arc.

Also IS THIS A ROOM benefits from the fact it doesn't try to pretend to be anything other than it is - it's a staging of the FBI transcript detailing the arrest of Reality Winner, and just keeping to that simplicity is what makes the weird bits weirder, the scarier bits scarier, and the gutting bits so gutting. It's brief, simple, but craftily directed by Tina Satter. Stellar acting, we love simple design elements used effectively.... Read more Read less

See it if You want a fascinating situation staged clearly.

Don't see it if You want something less philosophy and more action.

Also TERRA FIRMA is a big play with big ideas but it suffers from the weight of its own ambition. I'm not sure how else to describe it but not as an underdeveloped show (not in the slightest) but a show developed in a direction that didn't serve the potential meaning that the work could elucidate.... Read more Read less

See it if You like Great Actors Acting Well, love great writing and smart direction.

Don't see it if You don't like one-man shows. You have little heart. Need a bigger scope in terms of cast and set and storytelling.

Also Two really well-paired monologues by Simon Stephens and Nick Payne, ace direction by Carrie Cracknell, with stellar performances by Tom & Jake. It's great seeing a kinder, non-aggressive type of masculinity depicted on stage. Personally, "A Life" is the better of the two plays but both are standouts in single-man storytelling with wide, beautiful canvases of emotion. Couldn't help but feel a chamber piece like this shouldn't really be on Broadway, but they clearly wanted Jake on Broadway because it would sell.... Read more Read less

See it if You want really different, really fascinating theater.

Don't see it if You need something purely linear or straightforward. This is Mac Wellman, y'all, prepare for some joyous weird.

Also BAD PENNY is a fun one. The decision to take the show outside was a great one and helped the strange, communal nature of the piece. A fun, unusual time with a playfulness and whimsicality a lot theater can learn from. I was pleasantly bamboozled which isn't something I get to say a lot.... Read more Read less

See it if You want a really okay, really hokey musical.

Don't see it if Just don't. It's overwritten, under-conceived, casually racist, and not worth it.

Also This is what happens when you want to tell an important, original story but have none of the actual desire or drive to do so. It's way too long, way too slow, and way too cliched and dated.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see a horrifying, bloody take on girlhood.

Don't see it if You have issues with nudity, teenagers, goddess-summoning, or Sonic.

Also This really intriguing concept and fascinating staging and text would have landed harder if the acting style didn't veer into this weird, druggy, semi-aloofness that undercut the brutality inherent in the dramatic structure. There was, no spoilers, a "murder" - if only the rest of the play had the same energy as said murder.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to hear some unusual orchestration/fascinating use of loop in musical theater scoring.

Don't see it if You want theater that has well-developed dramatic structure

Also I'm genuinely surprised at how disappointed I was. It felt like there were so many ideas that weren't dug into and resulted in a skeletal, uninteresting musical.... Read more Read less

See it if You like confrontational, funny, uncompromising theater.

Don't see it if You have issues with (very minor) audience participation, nudity, or blunt language about race and sex.

Also I'm firmly in the "if theater makes you uncomfortable, it's doing something right" camp - not to say all uncomfortable theater is good theater, but this is very good theater. It's whip-smart, unafraid, and firm in its commitment to the stories it's trying to tell. If you're not someone who likes to be discomforted by your theatrical experience, see this anyway. It's like stepping into the deep end of the pool just to get the cold shock over with.... Read more Read less

See it if You like office comedies but with an intelligent, surreal twistiness.

Don't see it if You don't like office comedies with intelligence and surreal twistiness.

Also A great one-hour, hilariously constructed, bit-of-a-wallop of a play. And yes, it will make you kinda hungry afterwards but it's also a deep consideration into why we obsess over petty things and the comfort those petty things give us in the face of an all-consuming existential maw.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see a fresh take on an American classic novel.

Don't see it if You want your Broadway fare to be more socially relevant and palpable.

Also Look, Aaron Sorkin's script is masterfully crafted and Bartlett Sher's direction is excellent as usual, but I left 'To Kill A Mockingbird' feeling as if there were works by PoC writers and directors that should have taken up the Schubert's massive stage. We always need to re-examine our legends and our canon, and 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is a genuine part of that canon (especially the white canon), but we more desperately need to amplify the voices of those we've marginalized to the very most of our ability - this show just doesn't do enough. Not by a long shot.... Read more Read less

See it if You want a good take on and interpretation of Chekhov.

Don't see it if You have no funny bone.

Also As a Russian-speaking person, I often find American & British interpretations of Chekhov to be deeply depressing, unfunny, and unnecessarily dour. Aaron Posner's straight-up English style retelling of 'Uncle Vanya' proved to be a great antidote to this bizarre mindset that Chekhov = always sad. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of bitterness in his work, but there is also a sense of kindness and understanding in his writing. And for fuck's sake, they're supposed to be funny (looking at you Richard Nelson)!... Read more Read less

See it if You actually want to see a great musical that takes full advantage of what it can be.

Don't see it if You don't like sung-through shows or have no heart.

Also Hadestown has been a long time coming but it was worth the wait. It's genuinely refreshing to see a show that actually shows how the world could perhaps be better and the failings we need to encounter on the way. It's gorgeously wrought, intelligently directed and the score is deeply original and sublime.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see a genuinely interesting take on grief and mourning.

Don't see it if You don't like being aggravated emotionally in a theater.

Also I love Max Porter's book and Enda Walsh's direction and adaptation is one of the most intuitive, stunning variations on a text I've seen this year. The material is darkly kind, the direction muscular, and the deep well of empathy at the play's core may bring you to tears.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see relentless comedic tour-de-force acting and writing making you endlessly tickled yet scared.

Don't see it if You don't like gore. Or sex.

See it if You want to be bored even with stellar actors.

Don't see it if You like Anne Carson - the production does not do justice to her text at all.

See it if You want to see a very good example of how to adapt a rich source material into a faithful adaptation.

Don't see it if The musical kept feeling like it was holding it's breath but never letting go - the moments that should have taken us away didn't happen.

Also I think my main issue with this adaptation was that the enchanting but pretty damn slow source material has resulted in an...enchanting but pretty damn slow musical. Duncan Sheikh's music never quite lifts off in the way it should and the songs feel a bit too on the generic end. Lynn Nottage's book roots us back in the time where this story takes place but a good book can't save a musical where the music is just...eh?... Read more Read less

See it if You enjoy great writing, deeply experimental yet accessible theater, and incredible staging.

Don't see it if You don't like a capella musicals, need a lot of plot to sustain your interest, prefer period over contemporary pieces.