Anatomy of a Suicide NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (139)
See it if you're fascinated w stories of depression/despair/dysfunction/death. 3 generatns of destructn, shown overlapping (action/dialogue). Dizzying
Don't see it if you want hope; mental illness shown as intractable, inheritable. Clever staging, but info gets lost. Lots of smoking. Some robotic delivery.
See it if Stories told at the same time. Suicide-depression and some good acting in it. Interesting story for the most part.
Don't see it if Gets slow at certain points. If you get confused easily. Must pay close attention to this one. Depressing at times.
Critic Reviews (19)
CRITIC’S PICK. "In ‘Anatomy of a Suicide,’ Pain in Triplicate: Alice Birch’s cleareyed and comfortless play follows three generations of women tethered to life by the thinnest possible filament."
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5/5 Stars. "The structure of the play is disorienting, at times even overwhelming. But Lileana Blain-Cruz's direction provides clarity amid the cloud of pain. The production is exquisitely timed and calibrated."
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"Horror Stories of Womanhood: 'Dracula,' 'Frankenstein,' and 'Anatomy of a Suicide'"
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"The director Lileana Blain-Cruz and her cast skillfully navigate the challenging setup, suggesting desperately interlocked narratives that, miraculously, never feel morbid."
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"Carla Gugino appears in the NYC premiere of this award-winning experimental drama about three generations of troubled women by 'Lady Macbeth' screenwriter Alice Birch."
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"In 'Anatomy of a Suicide,' Family Legacy Lives in the Past, Present, and Future: Alice Birch writes a clamorous symphony of inherited trauma for three generations of women in her new play at Atlantic Theater Company."
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"The director Lileana Blain-Cruz and her cast skillfully navigate the challenging setup, suggesting desperately interlocked narratives that, miraculously, never feel morbid."
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Alice Birch's new play begins as an exercise in organized chaos, gradually arranging itself into a triptych of tragedy covering three generations of women in a single family. It's a tough, bold piece of writing that proves troubling in ways both intentional and not.
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"Birch offers no insight into possible treatment and, more importantly, she offers no hope for the future. The result is a play that's brutally depressing and, with its overlapping stories and dialogue, irritatingly tedious to watch."
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3/5 Stars. "An intriguing, excruciating play, with a cast led by a haunting
Carla Gugino."
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2/5 Stars. "Playwright Alice Birch is saying interesting things; if we could engage with the stories, we'd probably even be moved to care about them."
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"Acclaimed British playwright Alice Birch is concerned with hollow technique rather than rendering fleshed out characters straightforwardly grappling with life's travails. Instead, we get three women's cryptic underdeveloped stories mashed together."
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Best Bet. "The cast delivers knockout performances…the fast pace instills the audience with a feeling of trust, as though our intelligence is being trusted to piece together the things tastefully left unsaid…and the team deserves praise for taking precautions in staging the sensitive content."
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"To Birch's credit, she offers no pat explanation for Carol and Anna's urges; if anything, we suspect that their drive toward self-annihilation is primarily genetic, and therefore unstoppable."
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"Alice Birch brings a unique take to the intergenerational story, depicting three women simultaneously and exploring how they are connected by shared trauma that is passed down over time."
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Score: 85% "Anatomy is right. This extraordinary play dissects the topic as any good clinician might. The cast is remarkable, with tour de force performances well worth seeing. I would have preferred, however, a more emotional than intellectual experience."
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"The anatomy of suicide is larger than life. Playwright Alice Birch and director Lileana Blain-Cruz capture that enormity and the surrounding need for discussion with heartfelt grace and impassioned urgency."
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"An exercise in virtuosity for both playwright and director, with a cast that deserves kudos. But what is the insight about suicide? I had to struggle so much just to figure out what was happening…Shouldn't a play be more than a puzzle?'
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"Excellently acted, directed, and designed, its unconventional structure dissipates its impact, casting a haze around material that deserves to be more visceral…'Anatomy of a Suicide,' despite its technical expertise, thematic angst and structural organization…, never socked me in the gut."
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