The Edge of Our Bodies NYC Reviews and Tickets

"A coming-of-age tale, we're meant to believe. Yet from its first moments it seems a retro variation on another theme entirely: a familiar male pipe dream revolving around a girl...It's a head-scratcher to be staging it post-#MeToo...Mr. Rapp, who absolutely can do better tosses in some references to Jean Genet's 'The Maids', and toward the end reframes events with a dramatic device. I'm still not buying it."
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"Malloy is alone on stage for almost the whole play, skillfully walking a fine line between brainy sophistication and adolescent longing...An impressive feat of acting on Malloy's part...Rapp plants seeds in the script's early scenes that lead to later dramatic reveals but draw more attention to the playwright than to the character he's created; despite some genuinely affecting and haunting moments, 'The Edge of Our Bodies' feels like a theatrical stunt-the kind a girl like Bernie would love."
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"An aching look at the depth of the human heart...However, despite an inventive, looming production, the piece itself never stops resembling a short story that Rapp decided to turn into a play but forgot to make theatrical...A descriptive story whose conceit works against the theatricality Rapp is forcing upon it...Might not register very well as a play, but Molloy, Stone, and this production find their way into it from the inside out, and create something indelibly human in the process."
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"This is a coming of age story like no other. The show stars Carolyn Molloy who performs Rapp's well-crafted dialogue superbly...Carolyn Molloy delivers a compelling performance as Bernie, the dramatic teen who is trying to make sense of the world around her...'The Edge of Our Bodies' is a refreshingly honest show that is relatable for people of all ages."
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"Whatever one thinks of 'The Edge of Our Bodies' -- and, despite some baffling theatrics, it contains a great deal of beautiful writing -- it is a golden chance to make the acquaintance of Carolyn Molloy...She seizes the stage with her first sentence and retains her grip until the stark finale...The only thing separating 'The Edge of Our Bodies' from a literary reading is a baffling pair of devices...Even when one wants to resist Rapp's writing, it is nearly impossible."
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"Jacqueline Stone, who also directed the Chicago production in 2016, has allowed Molloy to use the same reading voice throughout which eventually becomes tiresome. Part of the time Bernadette's story sounds like something remembered in recollection, part of the time she sounds like she is living it at that moment. Which is it? Having told us that she wants to be a short story writer, is this her first completed short story?"
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"Rapp’s play is driven by an exquisite text and has a remarkable actor in the passenger seat...Beautiful. The text is exquisite and breathtaking...Essentially a live reading of a really good short story...Molloy is compelling, achieving theatre magic when she describes her encounter involving Marc...For a moment I forgot that the show is primarily a solo performance...Never self-indulgent or ostentatious, shedding just enough light to illuminate what he wants us to notice behind a thin veil."
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"The audience had a hard time figuring out what was going on...We knew the character was telling us about an event in her life. But the trappings were so inscrutable, we spent more time trying to figure out the context then concentrating on her voyage...An uphill battle for Carolyn Molloy who did a terrific job of imbuing Bernadette with vitality and authenticity...By the end, I was confused and, frankly, mad. I felt I had been subjected to a test that had been set up for me to fail."
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"Molloy is wonderfully intricate in her performance...Inhabiting this 16 year old teenage with every nervous and anxious fiber that exists on the edge of her body...A compelling tale, that borders on the mundane at times, recreating and recounting every moment down to its most insignificant minutia...Molloy somehow, quite mysteriously, keeps at least a few strong fibers of connection going at all times, compelling us forward into the unknown."
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"Rapp…captures the alienated, bored mindset of this old-before-her-time teenager but his play…never comes to life as drama. This production…does what it can to make what is essentially the reading of a short story theatrically interesting; it fails, though, to cross the threshold from literature to theatre…When a shaggy wolf skin appeared, I thought at once how much the story resembled another shaggy animal. Molloy does a quite decent job of portraying Bernadette but…is never fully convincing."
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"Abstract and lumbering...With extensive doses of narration broken only by a few unexplainable affronts of noise and light, 'The Edge of Our Bodies' shares a border with the limits of our patience. Director Jacqueline Stone has gone out of her way to keep the audience at a distance...Molloy, in her Off-Broadway debut, believably portrays a teen, but saddled with a script full of tales, rather than dialogue, she cannot find enough variation to keep her character from falling flat."
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"Regardless of Carolyn Molloy’s talent, which bursts forward the moment she becomes active and lures in the audience, the opening 10 minutes or more drag. Also, the setting, which supposedly represents a stage, remains opaque...The strongest scenes reflect the most dynamic action and poetic themes, with a haunting beauty...Without Molloy or another similar talent in this tour-de-force role, 'The Edge of Our Bodies' would fall flat. Molloy manages to salvage the production."
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"At times one wonders how much Rapp is using Bernadette as a mouthpiece to demonstrate his own voracious literary appetite. Yet Carolyn Molloy's performance as Bernadette and Jacqueline Stone's direction hone Rapp's story like a two-sided blade. One side makes cutting observations of how people fail each other, and the other slices through that scrim of despair to show the weak light of renewal through the act of telling stories."
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"Rapp is one of the contemporary masters of establishing atmosphere...If listening to a teenager’s darkly humorous meditation on the all-consuming ravages of time on people’s bodies doesn’t sound like your thing, be assured that Rapp is perceptive enough to knock Bernadette out of her reverie, twice...As a writer, Bernadette is aware that she is crafting her self-presentation, even though she’s currently just performing for herself. But she’s a very skilled storyteller."
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"Through her captivating one-handed performance, Molloy transforms the somewhat banal premise of 'The Edge of our Bodies' into truly innovative theatre...Her harsh New York accent lands so well with that character that I wish she’d have done something similar with the others. Not that I ever lost interest or got confused with regards to which character was speaking; it’s more a matter of utilizing every bit of Molloy’s obvious talent. 'The Edge of Our Bodies' works as a coming of age story."
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"The first half of this play is seen through that forced hazy filter. It makes the world just a bit out of focus, and that fully supports the play itself in which much is unclear...Stone has delivered a production of Rapp’s script that delves into the mind of a sixteen-year-old girl who is grasping at her maturing psyche and attempting to share it by thrusting it out into the open...It is a glimpse into a mind. It is a character study."
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"Molloy’s creation is an act of amazing preparation, vulnerability, and spontaneity. Her character work within Bernadette and the other figures she manifests is precise and personal. In a one-person show, this endurance and creativity sustains us. Her work is impeccable. Rapp’s script allows for the metatheatrical questioning of the role of an audience in the creation of art but Stone plays it smart and never leans too heavily on it. Her direction is deft, stylish, and intelligent."
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