20th Century Blues
20th Century Blues
75

20th Century Blues NYC Reviews and Tickets

75%
(196 Ratings)
Positive
79%
Mixed
18%
Negative
3%
Members say
Relevant, Great acting, Intelligent, Entertaining, Absorbing

About the Show

This new premiere tells the story a group of four women whose annual photo shoot ritual keeps them together, until it threatens to tear them apart.

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Show-Score Member Reviews (196)

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683 Reviews | 162 Followers
90
Delightful, Great acting, Resonant, Intelligent, Touching

See it if you've hit retirement age, or would like a taste of the fears & joys of this generation, still feeling vital but knowing it can't last.

Don't see it if the thought of anything older than disco makes your skin crawl. Read more

290 Reviews | 92 Followers
90
Absorbing, Clever, Great acting, Funny, Great writing

See it if If like smart plays about smart women who deal with real issues regarding friends, success and how to balance it all.

Don't see it if You want to see something with a light touch.

90 Reviews | 11 Followers
88
Absorbing, Ambitious, Great acting, Great writing, Intelligent

See it if you can enjoy a deep exploration of friendships, life's highs and lows, disappointments and successes, and you like "real" conversation.

Don't see it if I can't fathom the criticisms of this ambitious, well written play. It's talky but deep, interesting & paced well. Reflections on life...

65 Reviews | 14 Followers
87
Absorbing, Clever, Great acting, Edgy, Profound

See it if you are interested in the concept of time and how we change

Don't see it if you want a big show with large numbers

273 Reviews | 36 Followers
87
Absorbing, Intelligent, Relevant

See it if You want a show about friendship among four diverse women over forty years. Fine acting, interesting chatacters, excellent writing.

Don't see it if You are not interested in women and aging

52 Reviews | 8 Followers
87
Entertaining, Funny

See it if you enjoy seeing women "of a certain age" being fabulous!

Don't see it if ... no reason not to see it!

762 Reviews | 147 Followers
85
Entertaining, Funny, Great acting, Life

See it if I like this show, for it tells of four women who are friends for years. it about life. Subject about aging too.

Don't see it if Its as No singing, dance, just talking, about life.

302 Reviews | 99 Followers
85
Entertaining, Funny, Great acting, Resonant

See it if You enjoy a view into the bonds of friendship over 40 years with 4 excellent female actors.

Don't see it if You don’t like shows about the lives of women.

Critic Reviews (21)

Front Row Center
November 28th, 2017

"This is a well-intentioned play, focusing on a subject that is rarely seen in the theatre. Nevertheless the storyline is so contrived that it nearly doubles back on itself and in the process loses its hold on the point of the tale...The writing swirls around these women like so much chiffon yardage. There is no 'there' there. The actors try valiantly, but these characters are not firing on all cylinders, so there is little they can do other than be valiant. Ditto the direction by Emily Mann."
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Theatre's Leiter Side
December 1st, 2017

“There's really not much here to chew on. The conversation, which occasionally stirs a ripple of polite laughter, has a biteless artificiality, the characters lack dimensionality, and dramatic tension is notably absent. Some of the dialogue…sounds more academic than natural; at any rate, it's hard to buy. And, like many playwrights, Miller has difficulty finding convincing reasons to get characters offstage so that others can be left alone to speak privately.”
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The Huffington Post
November 27th, 2017

"Emily Mann directs as best she can. The cast—four top-notch actors are the friends—attempt to give life to a drama that, since it deals with women of a certain age confronting their past and present, is a strong premise that falls far short of achieving the power it should."
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Times Square Chronicles
November 26th, 2017

"These women have survived life and along the way protest marches, women’s liberation...now they are trying to hurdle the road map of getting older...The direction by Emily Mann and the acting of these five fierce females, allows this discussion to take place...Miller dialogue is authentic and piercing, if not a little too talky, and with the addition of Danny’s mother and son, it seems as if there are too many subjects being discussed at once."
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Gotham Playgoer
November 26th, 2017

"The interaction of the four friends could easily have provided enough material to hold our interest. The level of the writing is uneven, incisive one moment and clunky the next...The topic of feelings of invisibility and obsolescence for mature women is one worthy of our attention. The treatment it gets from Ms. Miller is just good enough that I was left wishing it had been better. The actors work well together."
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Wolf Entertainment Guide
November 27th, 2017

"Reflects women in the face of how they are unjustly regarded in society. The portraits are effective, as the cast members are all excellent in their delineation of what is happening in their lives. The writing is crisp, and yet there is insufficient drama to make the work more dynamic. But what there is impresses, and one comes away with more awareness of what women go through and how they are affected by a society that prizes youth and beauty and instills fear of becoming over the hill."
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W
November 27th, 2017

"Playwright Susan Miller has the pulse of women at a certain age. Her characters are well drawn and not so obviously diverse that they feel like clichés. Humor is as spot on as insidious fears. We know these people...Director Emily Mann stages with comfortable naturalism. A few too many exits when things get prickly, however, seem like a way not to have to handle unspeaking characters. Timing is realistic. Physical characteristics fit personalities."
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The Clyde Fitch Report
November 27th, 2017

“Playwright Miller and director Emily Mann pace the storytelling with the deliberate pause-and-reflect rhythm of a daytime serial...More a calibrated pastiche than a decisively constructed dramatic ride. There is little suspense, scarcely a story to unfold. We’re left with the charm of the characters to entertain us...The stakes and life events are very present, but the mode Miller relies on is sequential monologues, not crafted dialogue...It’s watching characters report, not relate.”
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