Disco Pigs NYC Reviews and Tickets

"This portrait of two best friends on the crumbling cusp of adulthood is driven by a concentrated fuel of adrenaline and hormones, mixed with lethal quantities of alcohol. That, and a word-drunk poetry that zigzags between extreme, giddy feelings of power and powerlessness...A cast of two with the teeming energy of an angry mob...It’s the hyper-physical performances that define not only a completely detailed environment as Pig and Runt see it, but also the reality beyond it.”
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“At many points, it is nearly unintelligible...Their thick Irish accents would be barrier enough to many American ears, but they also use a daunting personal language...There is much to admire about John Haidar’s revival, but despite the actors’ energetic performances, the experience of absorbing the play can be exhausting...Some audience members are bound to tune out early in confusion, and that reaction is understandable.”
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“Campbell and Lynch make vivid impressions as the near-feral Pig and Runt...Walsh is at home with stories filled with shadows and tortured souls...Haidar’s staging moves at a fitting fast and furious clip. So much so your ears may ache as they try to adjust to the accents, unfamiliar references and Pig-and-Runt speak. That gets marginally easier over 75 minutes...The lives of Pig and Runt don’t.”
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“Haidar's revival is an admirable one. Moving at a hundred miles per hour from lights up, it features two actors almost supernaturally in sync...Their performances are thrilling...This work has lost its edginess as it has gotten older, and though Haidar, Campbell, and Lynch go for the jugular, the outcome doesn't feel as consequential as it did two decades ago...But an example of world dramatic literature that rarely gets produced in this country, it's important, worthwhile viewing.”
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"Darren and Sinéad are so intimately connected with one another that they communicate through their own mutually created dialect and shorthand slang...Their devotion to one another, to the point of excluding others, appears cute at first, but then reveals its unsettling details...But even with its brisk, energetic staging, there isn't quite enough substance to fill the play's 75 minutes. There's flashiness and style, for sure, but 'Disco Pigs' requires a bit more meat."
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“You simply have to ride the wave of words, hoping that they will coalesce into something comprehensible...I can't think of another play that so sternly insists on one's close attention while consistently frustrating it — and which, given the rather ordinary melodrama at its heart, offers so little in return...The two-person cast performs it with exemplary commitment and fluidity...I imagine that those who are familiar with ‘Disco Pigs’ will find many rewards here. They are welcome to them.”
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“Furiously paced and filled with unintelligible gibberish...’Disco Pigs’ is a challenge for contemporary American audiences...It's a period piece, but what may have seemed cutting edge and radical in 1996 runs the risk of feeling dated and pretentious in 2018...Both Campbell and Lynch have commanding presences on stage and throw themselves into their roles with passion, energy and commitment...Without question, Campbell and Lynch are the reason to see this revival."
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“John Haidar's energized production turns this material into a tour de force for Campbell and Lynch who are continually moving about spewing volumes of words, almost choreographed by movement director Naomi Said. Deeply in character, they seem to be living their adventures which include humor, fantasy and violence. However, American audiences will have difficulty with the thick Cork accents and Irish slang, as well as Pig and Runt's private language which often resembles baby talk.”
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“A completely stunning piece of theater...Nonstop action, Lynch as Runt and Campbell as Pig deliver a symphonically kinetic, explosive performance guaranteed to stick to your ribs for a long time to come. Tour de force does not begin to cover their commitment to Enda Walsh’s piercing, neo-Joycean work...The dialogue is tough to understand...yet what the pair communicate in expression and action speaks volumes...Pitch perfect production.”
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“A powerful coming-of-age play sensitively helmed by John Haidar...Patience and close listening will make the words a bit less daunting...Lynch and Campbell...convincingly inhabit the roles of two manic teens in an increasingly toxic relationship...Theatergoers most familiar with Walsh may find ‘Disco Pigs’ disconcertingly different. But it's also a fine opportunity to see the talented and now well-known playwright's envelope pushing fledgling work.”
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“The dialog is nearly incomprehensible to the American ear. I find it patronizing and exclusionary...In fact, it tends to infuriate me...Despite the nearly incomprehensible language...I was able to grasp the gist of the work. I credit the stunning, committed, and physical performances by both Lynch and Campbell...Presenting a play to an audience that is not going to grasp most of what they’re hearing, is just a bad call...Most people didn’t like it because they couldn’t comprehend it.”
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“'Disco Pigs' is very much rooted in a specific time and place. But its themes and sentiments are universal...A funny, highly affecting and tightly fashioned 20th anniversary production...Campbell and Lynch prove themselves impressively adept at handling the relatively difficult material...Skillful lighting design, directing well-tuned to the script, and the performances of Campbell and Lynch, this production of ‘Disco Pigs’ crafts a dizzying swirl of emotions.”
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"Directed with staccato precision by Haidar, these 'Disco Pigs' have a violence and sexual edge that sneaks up and sucker punches one's guts and morality...The writing is both bizarre and exciting, making one lean in hard while also wanted to back away from the discomfort felt...The production, designed simply and erotically...spins forward like an avalanche attacking a china shop...'Disco Pigs' will not be a night easily forgotten."
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"A soul-ripping exploration of the psychological process of separation and individuation and the sometimes-painful experience of facing adulthood...There's a deep sadness...as well as an exhilarating exploration of freedom found...Lynch finds the core of Runt's dilemma with a superior acuity...Campbell captures the chilling time when playfulness can become profound commitment. Their characters are authentic...their performances are astonishingly believable."
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“Explosively well-performed but frequently incomprehensible…It's a gourmet piece…that I doubt will be to everyone's taste…Performed to a thrilling sound score…and with an equally kaleidoscopic lighting plan…the volatile piece also benefits from tour-de-force performances…'Disco Pigs' has interest as a genre piece expressing the infantile behavior of shiftless kids in 1990s Ireland. Regardless,…it's hard to get worked up over a play at least 50% of which would benefit from subtitles.”
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“A script so dense that most of us will find it impenetrable...Luckily, there is an energetic rhythm and vividness to Walsh’s prose that two good actors can make more accessible with their bodies, turning the language visual and physical. Campbell and Lynch do just that...The actors do not come off as delinquents, and Campbell’s Pig just doesn’t seem dangerous. But they are both graceful and adorable, with fine comic timing, and for many, that might be enough.”
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"From time to time, there was an engaging development in the action, the last of which was a much-needed turn of events that at last raises the dramatic furor to what many may regard as the inevitable outcome of such frenzied behavior. The other impressive ingredient is the joint Campbell-Lynch acting...Walsh poured out his often-repetitive look at teenage raving and left it for whatever actors, directors sign on to make it work. With this committed group he’s gotten very lucky."
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"Despite the nearly incomprehensible language I was struggling with as I watched the play, I was able to grasp the gist (alright, and some of the nuance) of the work. I credit the stunning, committed, and physical performances by both Lynch and Campbell...The roller coaster was skillfully piloted by Director John Haidar... Still, despite the redeeming qualities...I’m afraid that presenting a play to an audience that is not going to grasp most of what they’re hearing, is just a bad call."
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"Brilliant and electrifying...One of the best productions I have seen on or off-Broadway in recent months...In ‘Disco Pigs’, Evanna Lynch (Runt) and Colin Campbell (Pig) come into the world right in front of us, as screaming infants with thoughts and words immediately streaming from their mouths..The pair are funny, sweet, sometimes whimsical, and also not to be crossed...Everything—really, everything—is perfectly realized in this production.”
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"A powerful revival...Walsh's writing has never felt more alive...Campbell gives a powerhouse performance as Pig...Lynch is excellent as Runt...Haidar directs the show with sure and steady hand. Using the text as a guide, he allows the actors free reign to basically explode off the stage. While at the same time, making sure the images and feelings that result are completely understandable to the audience. Even if the dialogue may not always be."
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“Campbell is like an Energizer bunny of kinetic energy, running and dancing about...Lynch, meanwhile, brings some of the mooniness she displayed playing Luna Lovegood on the big screen...Haidar keeps his stars in almost constant motion, often to the beat of mid-’90s pop tunes. The strategy is an effective one, bringing ‘Disco Pigs’ in at a fleet 75 minutes and helping disguise some of the shortcomings of Walsh’s early and promising script.”
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"Walsh’s play strips the term bare of its bright-lights, big-city ballroom connotations, throws a hefty dose of punk into the trunk, then turns off-road onto the aimless side of life. But it does so with deep, dark humor, wide-eyed invention and heaps of passion...Haidar’s production of the play takes several leaps of faith in transporting New York audiences to a time and place which may feel very foreign...The play moves with raging grace...Walsh’s script displays a master wordsmith at work."
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"What lifts Lynch and Campbell's production head and shoulders above every other production of 'Disco Pigs' that I've ever seen is the pure physical theatre that the pair have perfected. Their relationship, their codependency, the opportunity and threat that they represent to each other is captured in every single move they make on stage, allowing their body language to say even more than even the script does in this brilliant production."
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"This production unspools at a breakneck pace that captures the urgency of one’s teen years, with a physical and emotional intensity that’s both exhausting and exhilarating to watch. Kudus to the athletic, kinetic, two-person cast, brimming with sexy/dangerous chemistry and equally compelling in the vulnerability they display during telling soliloquies that are as memorable as they are pivotal to the changing relationship."
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"The production at Irish Rep—smart, sharp, and tight as a time bomb—is perhaps most interesting now for the way in which the play captures the trials and errors of a certain harrowing masculinity...Haidar smartly preserves the feeling of a world of Runt and Pig’s own making, giving the actors no props to play with, their movements tightly choreographed to their words...'Disco Pigs' isn’t social commentary. It’s a love story. It’s also a coming-of-age story, and a tragic one at that."
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"A smashing 20th-anniversary revival...Directed by John Haidar, this fast and furious little play depicts the relationship between two teenagers...Played with eerie synchronicity and combustible energy by Evanna Lynch and Colin Campbell...We watch fantasy fade and a relationship dissolve in the course of one violent, dusk-to-dawn spree, set to the rhythms of period dance music that shifts from exhilarating to bludgeoning."
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"It's hard not get muddled in Pig and Runt's sentences...Words fizz as you decipher each sentence. By the quarter-hour mark though, you feel as if you've found your feet and become engorged in this doomed love story...The production is, however, quite choppy...It takes too long to learn about them each as individuals, and discover what's going on inside their heads. Their conflict is the heart of their story, if only there was slightly more of it."
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"A surprisingly compassionate twentieth anniversary revival, but it’s a little bit too clean and controlled...Neither Campbell nor Lynch feel wired or dangerous enough and the violent explosions, which burst through this play, lack a little heat...John Haidar carves out some nice moments with the canny use of lights, movement, and music...It’s the fleeting moments of hope that really sting."
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"Walsh’s unique, hugely enjoyable and energetic play is given a high octane and loving production...Here we have two wonderful performances. Campbell is extraordinary as Pig...his muscular physicality and presence sometimes threatening to overshadow Lynch’s Runt, but this is the script. When Walsh gives her the space, she shines, beautifully poignant...Join in with the 'Disco Pigs' and wallow in the wordsmith of Walsh, a true genius and a worthy revival of his classic play."
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"Pig and Runt's language is part-Cork, part made-up and their conversation is ribald, slang-filled, funny, and poetic all at once...The pair's affection for each other, and zest for adventure is so infectious...I was grinning happily along with them...Both actors bring alive the emotional intensity of being a teenager and living for the moment, but also the struggle that exists when who you are is pitched against who you want to become and the two don't measure up. Go see it."
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"'Disco Pigs' looks as sharp and relevant as ever...The comic escapades are underpinned by Walsh’s firm understanding that childhood never slides neatly into adulthood and the writer finds the play’s most poignant moments from the pieces that do not fit...Both actors bring to fruition such moments of tenderness and internal conflict with immense subtlety...The fact that many specific words are indecipherable enriches rather than diminishes the lyricism in Walsh’s writing."
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"A tricky machine-gun mix of dialect and secret friend language. It requires two killer performances to make it work. Lynch and Campbell don’t quite manage it – the production takes a good 15 minutes to find its feet but they make an endearing and energetic pair...The actors are slightly hampered by Haidar’s production which is both over-literal...and too genteel to capture the euphoric surge of such a heady relationship."
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"As Pig, Campbell is an absolute diamond find...For a while Lynch struggles to keep up with her co-star...She does shine, however, in the quieter, sadder moment...For a play that’s 20 years old there is nary a wrinkle on 'Disco Pigs.' That’s in large part because Walsh’s language captures how sacred teen-speak feels to the participants, and how incomprehensible it sounds to most adults...The piece balances the buzz of youthful daring with a shot of emotional nostalgia."
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"'Disco Pigs' may understandably test some theatregoers’ patience...While surprisingly easy to follow, some lines of dialogue will pass even the most attentive audience member by. Personally, I enjoyed this aspect of the play but it may not be for everyone...Campbell’s performance is stronger, his voice carrying better and his portrayal more dynamic but together Campbell and Lynch make an excellent and believable duo...A treat for Walsh fans."
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"Tuning ears into a lingua franca is largely down to how convincing the actors are at using it; in Evanna Lynch and Colin Campbell, 'Disco Pigs' has a pair of effervescent translators...The setting is a nostalgic trap, inviting us to laugh at our younger, stupider selves...Constantly provocative and challenging, 'Disco Pigs' is a thrilling night on the town and a disconcerting dance through all the chaos, frustration, and confusion of being a teenager in a small town."
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