The Emperor Jones NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (94)
See it if Masterful performance in a play whose subject resonates in the current political environment.
Don't see it if You're looking for light and fluffy subject matter.
See it if Unique interpretation/performance of O’Neill play. Kudos to the team! Abili gave a brilliant performance.
Don't see it if You do not like O'Neill' work, or you do not like modern art, including modern theater.
See it if You want to see great acting and excellent staging
Don't see it if You don't want to see a play that resonates with the political climate we are in now
See it if Haunting, visceral staging of the emperor's demise using menacing life-sized puppets as the ghosts. Beliefs, power, and magic rule.
Don't see it if You prefer material that is easier to understand and analyze. You don't like artistic hallucinatory dance scenes. Read more
See it if You can avoid balcony. Virtual one man show w inventive masks and puppetry. Funny despite grim plot. Second production by dir likely better.
Don't see it if Saddled w balcony. If 70 min show too little entertainment value. Read more
See it if an expressionist play about an emperor who flees through a terrifying jungle populated by equally terrifying puppets
Don't see it if you don't like puppets, dark dramas or would be offended by black speech that we would now consider racist Read more
See it if The Acting of Obi Abill must be seen, studied, and if you're an Actor steal everything he does if you can. Top ratings to the production too
Don't see it if you expect to understand every word...they use dialect which is sometimes not clear, and partially the fault of O'Neill's scripted words. Read more
See it if Brilliant production of expressionist play about power,corruption,madness of a brutal black dictator in West Indies island great Obi Abilli
Don't see it if You don't like psychological plays drawing out perception and subconscious through puppetry and dance
Critic Reviews (25)
"A gorgeous, astonishing production...Both ferocious and blindsidingly affecting with Abili in the title role...'The Emperor Jones' is encrusted by its own time, with dialect that reads like racial caricature and sometimes cringe-worthy stage directions...O’Reilly’s lucid fever dream of a production shrugs off that grime, putting at its center a performance of such assured intelligence that there’s no possibility of condescension. Boundary-pushing in its day, the play still has plenty to say."
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“Abili’s bravura performance doesn’t come off as ‘bravura’ and has no cheap flourishes...O’Neill was considerably influenced by the argument made by the legendary stage designer Gordon Craig, in his book ‘The Theatre Advancing,’ that, in doing away with masks, pantomime, and dance, the theatre had lost its magic. O’Reilly throws all of that back in. The result is mostly cumbersome and ‘artisanal,’ but, in the end, this unconvincing backdrop serves to show us Abili’s performance in relief."
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“A nightmarish and hauntingly beautiful production...A breathtaking experience for the senses...Barry McNabb's masterful choreography is mesmerizing...But it's Abili's performance that gives this production its raw power...Abili's performance and O'Reilly's production make clear that Brutus Jones is one of the great tragic figures of the theater...The racial and political anxieties that 'The Emperor Jones' explores are ripe for renewed discussion in our time.”
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"Worth seeing for its assured style alone...Obi Abili delivers a performance that isn't easily shaken off...Despite the outsized emotions he must register, there's a precision to everything Abili does, a variety of shadings that reveal each scene to be another step in Jones' descent into madness and death...O'Neill's script is a weaponized comment on human cruelty, designed to make audiences feel uncomfortable, and, produced with passion and creativity as it is here, it continues to do so."
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"Remains shockingly powerful and relevant in its methods of addressing its ancient ideas. All of this is on full view, too, in O'Reilly's arresting production...A journey that first feels like a leisurely stroll soon transforms into a heart-pounding marathon...The cast is no less than expert. But in embracing both Jones's humanity and total lack of it, Abili is truly superb...This version of 'The Emperor Jones' knows exactly what it is and what it needs to be. And we are all the richer for it."
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"Still breathtakingly original...It's hard to top Thompson's riveting performance...Obi Abili hasn't mastered the brutish Jones's dialect with quite the same crystal clear line delivery. However, his more physically focused interpretation is quite extraordinary and works well with this expressionistic presentation...The amazing puppets and the actors who inhabit them, as well as the costumes, atmospheric music and lighting are what makes this 'Emperor Jones' so special."
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"With Charlie Corcoran's flexible set turning the tiny stage of the Irish Rep into a looming tropical forest, and the smartly realized costumes of Antonia Ford-Roberts and Whitney Locher, and Bob Flanagan's masks and puppets transforming a cast of seven into a multitude of trees, ghostly presences and spirits, the five hundred or so square feet of this stage on West 22nd Street became a vividly haunted island in the West Indies, giving life to O'Neill's 1920 drama."
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"What drives this highly expressionistic production is the charismatic Obi Abili as Emperor Jones, giving one of the most exciting performances on the New York stage this season...Abili has a commanding stage presence that keeps you utterly riveted throughout. He fills the tiny Irish Repertory Theatre with his explosive power...Director O’Reilly and his design team have dramatized Emperor Jones’ journey in powerful theatrical terms."
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