Days to Come NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Hellman’s sprawling, centerless play...It’s a mishmash of acting styles in a tonally uneven production that rarely wipes the dust of decades from the text. It’s an overloaded play but there is more life in it than the Mint staging finds...'Days to Come' feels like she couldn’t decide whether she was writing a play or a film. Opened up on the screen, it might have blossomed. Onstage in this revival, it simply wilts."
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“’Days to Come’ is not without flaw...Hellman wasn’t yet able to smoothly entwine the disparate strands of her plot, and on occasion she indulges in the preachiness that forever after was to be her besetting sin. Nevertheless, it is as dramatically potent as any of her hits, and the Mint’s production, directed with self-effacing sureness by J.R. Sullivan, is so strong as to paper over the author’s occasional missteps. The cast couldn’t be better.”
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"Well-staged and smartly acted, it still leaves us underwhelmed by a script that bites off more than it can chew...Hellman thrillingly eschews simplistic agitprop, fully humanizing her characters...But it's Hellman's expansive scope that is also the play's undoing: Not only does it dilute focus, but the linguistic labor and dramatic contrivance...ensures a long and often painfully dull process...Neither as funny or tragic as it has the potential to be."
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"Very fine production...Most of the women are peripheral to the story...But there is much focus, though not a sufficient amount of depth, devoted to Andrew's wife, Julie...Alternating between family drama and Depression-era labor issues, 'Days to Come' serves neither satisfactorily, but it's still a worthy venture for the Mint, and an intriguing curiosity for audiences."
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"If it runs aground, it is, nevertheless, a fascinating work...Just when events come to a head, the playwright goes off on an unaccustomed talking jag, convening several characters for an extended postmortem that drains much of the evening's excitement...Until this point, J. R. Sullivan's production maintains a steadily mounting tension, aided by a solid, and sometimes inspired, cast...Even though it disappoints, for anyone with a serious interest in Hellman, 'Days to Come' is a must."
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"This is no unearthed treasure...'Days to Come' spends comparatively little time dealing with the plight of the striking workers and, instead, devolves for much of its length into a poorly written domestic drama...Probably due to both the flawed writing and a lack of strong guidance from Sullivan, the Mint production is inconsistently well acted...If 'Days to Come' has turned out to be a disappointment, the production design is up to the Mint's excellent standard."
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"Definitely a disappointing head-scratcher. And the Mint Theater Company’s current production doesn’t make a convincing case for its resurrection. The biggest problem, apologies to Ms. Hellman, is simply the play itself, which, even almost 100 years on, is in the midst a major identity crisis...Using the strike as a backdrop is a fine, if curious, choice—as long as something in the foreground is compelling and eye-catching. And none of these characters are."
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"In part due to Hellman's inexperience as a writer (it was only her second play) and J.R. Sullivan's initially sluggish direction, the production really doesn't come fully alive until after intermission, largely because the first act is so heavy on exposition as it introduces both its vast cast of characters and numerous plot strands. But the second act makes up for it, with plenty of crackling dialogue and surprising twists to keep the audience fully engaged."
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