Dear Elizabeth NYC Reviews and Tickets

80%

(17 Reviews)

Positive

76%

Mixed

24%

Negative

Members say

Intelligent, Absorbing, Slow, Great acting, Thought-provoking

About the Show

The Women's Project presents this New York premiere by Sarah Ruhl, drawn from the famed correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell – two of the twentieth century’s most brilliant poets.

'Dear Elizabeth' tells a tale of unconventional friendship and intimacy that spanned thirty years and more than 400 letters, with postmarks from Maine to Key West, from London to South America. Performed with a rotating cast, the play offers an insightful and impassioned examination of Bishop and Lowell’s lives, their work, and the true nature of friendship.

Member Reviews (17)

Absorbing, Intelligent, Original, Great writing (by lowell and bishop), Enchanting

See it if you want an intelligent evening, filled with poetry and pathos. The beautifully written letters were beautifully read.

Don't see it if you have no interest in the two poets, altho their humanity (esp'ly Bishop's) shines through. You don't have to love poetry to enjoy DE.

Small, Sad, Sweet, Lovely, Original

See it if you like shows that are small in scope and sweetly sad.

Don't see it if you need to watch action take place in front of you when you see a show.

Absorbing, Great acting, Intelligent, Profound, Resonant

See it if If you are interested in Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. I saw it with Kathleen Chalfant and Harris Yulin who were both fantastic.

Don't see it if If you don't like shows where actors sit at a desk and read/act the script.

Entertaining, Intelligent, Slow, Good performances, Literary

See it if you are interested in seeing two fine performances: Cherry Jones and David Aaron Baker. Also if you like poets and/or poetry.

Don't see it if you can't tolerate glacial staging or you are not into poets/poetry.

Disappointing, Overrated, Slow, Banal, Indulgent

See it if You want to be bored to death. Similar to Love Letters, but at least that was charming. This wasn't.

Don't see it if You want to be rivited.

Slow, Literary, Two-hander

See it if you really love Sarah Ruhl, and/or Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, or you want to see a more literary version of Love Letters.

Don't see it if you aren't interested in actors reading old letters between two people, where there's not much romance, and not much conflict.

Great writing

See it if you like Sarah Ruhl's work.

Don't see it if you don't.

Absorbing, Intelligent, Thought-provoking, Slow

See it if you enjoy epistolary plays or literary history.

Don't see it if you want robust staging and acting beyond the confines of a desk.

Critic Reviews (7)

"Ms. Ruhl has excerpted their long correspondence with a fine ear for emotional detail and the glistening phrase, but the personal evolutions in both poets’ lives are sometimes hard to discern from oblique references...What’s most affecting about 'Dear Elizabeth' is that despite lapses in their correspondence somehow these two great writers never lost each other, until, inevitably, death put a final caesura in their friendship."
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"This rendition is a dull, drab affair—and romantic it is not, despite what appears to be a team effort to insinuate a sublimated attraction between these two pillars of midcentury American poetry...This epistolary abridgment is a bit of a slog, as the pair parry compliments, writing pointers and oft-thwarted plans to get together. Viewing these two influential writers side by side onstage proves much less vivid than encountering them on the page."
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"Ruhl's adaptation is cannily put together, carefully combining the personal and literary aspects of the correspondence…Biographical details are only alluded to, with confusion sometimes resulting…Not surprisingly, considering its provenance, the language in the piece often soars, with the writing of even routine missives achieving a, yes, poetic quality. Director Kate Whoriskey occasionally adds bits of theatrical business...These range from the charming, if predictable to the overly cutesy."
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"This might have worked if there was something inherently dramatic in the correspondence; if there is, it isn't to be found in the relatively brief sampling offered here…'Dear Elizabeth' starts to become just a little bit dull…Kate Whoriskey's production also pushes the star-crossed lovers agenda rather too diligently, staging little interludes where they embrace, dance, or otherwise act flirtatiously…Their ardent fans may feel rather shortchanged by this thinnish double portrait."
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"'Dear Elizabeth' is a dazzle of language used at the highest level to convey the feelings and ideas of major poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell as clearly as possible. Playwright Sarah Ruhl has dissected and arranged the thoughts of two of the best minds of the 20th century so that we know them intimately...Kate Whoriskey’s minimalist production allows the burnished words to speak in all their full glory."
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"The script covers 30 years in such lickety-split fashion that individual scenes feel fragmentary; and the play, as a whole, is elliptical. Anyone unfamiliar with the lives of these poets and the larger thrust of their correspondence is bound to be somewhat at sea…The interludes don't prevent 'Dear Elizabeth' being dramatically inert. What saves the day, despite the inertia, is the majesty of the poets' language as intoned by first rate actors."
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"At its best, 'Dear Elizabeth' is an eloquent tribute to the beauties of the friendship between two difficult, prickly, prodigiously talented and prodigiously damaged people... There are times though when the piece feels handicapped by the restraint inherent in all its components...It feels more like an experiment, though a highly worthy one, than a fully satisfying theatrical experience."
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