Building the Wall NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (133)
See it if You love current events with a spin. Or if you love a well preformed and written play. A 90min show makes one question and feel many things.
Don't see it if You are looking for a big Broadway show. The only thing big here is talent. Don't see it if your not a fan of in"real time" shows like 24
See it if You are not worried about how Trump's presidency will hurt the values of the country. And if you are, this will make you worry more.
Don't see it if You don't enjoy stories told though dialogue. Entire play is one 70-minute scene in a prison interrogation room.
See it if you like powerful drama flowing from the major political and societal issues of our time.
Don't see it if politics bore you, you're white fragile, or you need a happy ending.
See it if you like the actors, James Badge Dale &T amara Tunie -- and a show that is alarmingly topical sometimes.
Don't see it if You're expecting rivetng high-stakes conflict or any "new" information. A two-hander with no suspense.
See it if Extremely powerful considering the timeliness of the immigration deportation issue.
Don't see it if You voted for trump.
See it if You want a show that incorporates up-to-the-minute socio-political events and uses historical precedent to extrapolate to the near-future.
Don't see it if You're treating your neo-nazi cousin to a show.
See it if You want to see two fantastic actors go at it. Unfortunately, the writing doesn't match the performances. Disappointing script without drama
Don't see it if You are bored easily. This play is 100% exposition.
See it if if you are looking for a darker piece of work.
Don't see it if if you are looking for something light and pleasant.
Critic Reviews (31)
"The play is timely and relevant...Yet, Schenkkan's idea of rapid response to current events through theater is also risky. 'Building the Wall' is basically preaching to the choir, repeating old facts without the drama and insight of new ideas...The actors in this two-hander are credible....Unfortunately, in 'Building the Wall,' Schenkkan does not present analytic insight of where we are as a society, just a horrific hint of where campaign slogans like 'build a wall' can lead us."
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“As a piece of dramatic writing, the suspense ebbs and flows in a welter of exposition, but in the overall it does build—if in a formulaic way—to a shocking conclusion and makes its point unabashedly. The play is a two-hander, tautly directed by Ari Edelson and performed with mounting intensity…The plotting becomes clamorous with uncomfortable echoes of the Holocaust…Within the parameters of Schenkkan’s screed-like storytelling, the actors perform commendably."
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"Out of his imaginative mind comes another powerful theatre piece by Robert Schenkkan...As played at fever pitch by a remarkable James Badge Dale, and as questioned by the formidable reporter played by Tamara Tunie, the play is fiercely committed to calling us to arms...Edelson is certain to receive nominations for his work on this current offering; it’s relentlessly gripping. It is particularly timely."
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"I already have Facebook, Twitter, the New York Times, and MSNBC if I want my opinions confirmed...It feels like watching an op-ed."
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“Occasionally, the arguments sound like a list of talking points straight out of a Facebook comment war…Some of those moments almost sound too scripted, until you consider that maybe we really are starting to communicate like that in our hyper-polarized political environment…It feels more like a warning parable than a carefully crafted drama. But it is engaging, and plays like this can have real value in times like these.”
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"Director Ari Edelson and his superb two-person cast bring this disturbingly plausible play to life from its tension-filled opening moments all the way through to the charged, final line that sent chills down my spine...Dale turns in a magnificent performance...Tunie delivers an incisive performance...The level of detail that Schenkkan includes is absolutely enthralling...An extraordinary political play, designed for our current moment in time. It is urgent, vital theatre."
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“For the majority of its performance, ‘Building the Wall’ feels less like a drama than the fever dream of a horrified citizen who has absorbed too much campaign coverage…Thankfully, Schenkkan is not just any horrified citizen, and the searing dramatic intelligence that once earned him a Pulitzer reasserts itself by play’s end…If the play’s first hour is a somewhat stilted excuse for its final thirty minutes, these latter turn out to offer an artfully sketched warning.”
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