Daphne (Lincoln Center Theater) NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (49)
See it if You enjoy nuanced writing about complex ideas & are ready to embrace the mystery & think outside the box. Absolutely beautiful set too.
Don't see it if You're uncomfortable with ambiguity and/or you're not in the mood for what at times is a creepy haunted house of a play.
See it if you want to leave asking more questions than you started the night with
Don't see it if You want Linear writing, clear themes/ concepts/ content
See it if You would enjoy a measured, sometimes funny, often weird, and mostly eerie play about romantic entrapment.
Don't see it if You would not enjoy a measured, sometimes funny, often weird, and mostly eerie play about romantic entrapment. Read more
See it if into an amorphic Gothic tale where much is left unexplained. The actors are very "in the moment" and so can you.
Don't see it if well... you have to be prepared for a slow burn. I left confused, but I will remember this experience.
See it if A surreal spooky play, with a blurring line between harsh truth & easy illusions, is performed by a great cast on a creative stage. BUT..
Don't see it if Urn't x a play loaded w symbols&meanings.An abrupt end doesn't explain D's body changes or why she feels uncomfy in her new bucolic environ. Read more
See it if You don’t mind shows that try very hard to be something (I’m not sure exactly what that thing is here so obviously it failed) they’re not.
Don't see it if You don’t want a story full of hidden meanings but few if any details or solutions as to what it’s all about. I kept waiting for big reveal.
See it if you want to see the 1st attempt of an author to write a play
Don't see it if a coherent whole actually respectful of the myth it purports to be based on is what you want. Read more
See it if Support Lincoln Center.
Don't see it if You want to see a play that is ready to be seen.
Critic Reviews (10)
“ ‘Daphne’ is so good at creating a sense of its main characters’ insularity that the production also feels confining, stuck within a set of indecipherable metaphors. But unlike Daphne, who is transformed by the end of this 90-minute contemporary myth, we’re left exactly as we arrived.”
Read more
“Jarrett and director Sarah Hughes weave other surreal elements into the play...But these touches don’t add up to a cohesive alternate reality; they merely seem bizarre. One wishes ‘Daphne’ went all in and embraced its mythological roots.”
Read more
“Though appropriate to how memories and reality warp and fade in an abusive situation, these gaps make ’Daphne’ fairly thin. But the show ends on a note of hope, if a bittersweet one, that such a situation can, too, eventually fade into a mere memory.”
Read more
“ ‘Daphne’ is suffused with, and is about, specifically female kinds of fear.”
Read more
“Jarrett infuses a lot of themes into this shapeshifting plot — too many to deal with adequately in a 90-minute play...That’s a shame because Jarrett’s story does have the potential to captivate with its weirdness, complexity, and surprising tenderness if only it were treated with a lighter touch. In its present state, however, Daphne comes off as a wooden affair.”
Read more
“Indeed, the play could be said to be all about fear and dread, a case of style taking precedence over substance. It is likely you will never fully unravel its mysteries, but if you can live with that, there is enough to keep you intrigued if off balance for pretty much the entirety of its 90-minute running time, during which uncertainty will be your constant companion.”
Read more
“I was at such a loss with ‘Daphne’ that I tried to convince myself there was something I was missing others were getting. It’s often suggested that while men are linear thinkers, women are not. I wondered if that explained my falling short of understanding Jarrett’s observation of in-extremis women. “
Read more
“ ‘Daphne’ is a haunting tale of a love, nature, and the cost that often comes with truly escaping. It haunts in its relatability, and in what it leaves unsaid. Do not expect to find a bow tied around this piece; don’t expect a nice, clean play; but do expect to be goose pimpled, unnerved, and to leave pondering the piece’s humanity, magic, whimsy, and message.”
Read more