Evanston Salt Costs Climbing
Closed 1h 40m
Evanston Salt Costs Climbing
69

Evanston Salt Costs Climbing NYC Reviews and Tickets

69%
(85 Ratings)
Positive
67%
Mixed
20%
Negative
13%
Members say
Ambitious, Great acting, Absorbing, Thought-provoking, Clever

Will Arbery's new play about salt truck drivers in an eerie Illinois.

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Show-Score Member Reviews (85)

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67 Reviews | 14 Followers
90
Intense, Great writing, Great acting, Absorbing, Ambitious

See it if you enjoy and appreciate challenging intelligent troubling theater. I found it deeply moving. The actors are excellent.

Don't see it if everything needs to make sense, and you do not like to peer into the darkness.

665 Reviews | 125 Followers
88
Great writing, Intelligent, Masterful, Must see, Thought-provoking

See it if You want to see another masterpiece by Will Arbery. A great drama about real life people

Don't see it if You are looking for a light piece of theater or if you are not willing to work for the reward at the end of the rainbow. Read more

269 Reviews | 81 Followers
87
Riveting, Intense, Intelligent, Great staging, Absorbing

See it if You enjoy looking at life abstractly. There is so much to absorb and wonder where is the playwright leading us. We explore our fragility.

Don't see it if You want to simply be entertained and feel happy. This isn’t a happy tune. We confront insecurities, isolation, fears without a way out.

92 Reviews | 13 Followers
85
Great writing, Great acting, Clever, Funny, Absorbing

See it if You like unique theater that plays with the form but is (mostly) rooted in naturalism. This is a truly original work that has a lot to say.

Don't see it if You like theater that doesn’t make you think too much.

211 Reviews | 28 Followers
85
Intense, Intelligent, Great acting, Entertaining, Absorbing

See it if you love great acting and design. Dark drama and human relationships.

Don't see it if you’re only into conventional storytelling.

119 Reviews | 52 Followers
84
Ambitious, Thought-provoking, Edgy, Confusing, Absorbing

See it if Very interesting. Definitely leaves you with a lot to think about.

Don't see it if You don't like edgy new theatre. If you aren't comfortable with profanity. There is a lot of it, sometimes unnecessarily.

135 Reviews | 18 Followers
83
Dizzying, Great acting, Funny

See it if you are interested in exploring unconventional story themes. Is it super natural? Is it about climate change? Great acting

Don't see it if you are looking for a linear, conventional play

450 Reviews | 81 Followers
83
Poetic, Thought-provoking, Whimsical, Insightful

See it if you love Arbery’s work and are open to experimentation with the bounds of realism.

Don't see it if you have to be able to draw neat lines through linear narratives.

Critic Reviews (8)

The New York Times
November 16th, 2022

“ 'Evanston' has moments of grace and sympathy, mostly owing to the conviction of its performers. Each goes all-in on the characters’ failings, neuroses and flashes of generosity."
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Variety
November 17th, 2022

"It’s perfect — dreadful and hilarious — considering this brilliant, 95-minute, one-act tragicomedy takes place over three recent Illinois winters, all rushing toward the climate apocalypse."
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Theatermania
November 16th, 2022

"By the end, we feel almost as though we're in a different play altogether as a character mysteriously disappears and we witness fantastical twists of plot that might have seemed ingenious on paper but that don't fare well onstage."
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Lighting & Sound America
November 17th, 2022

For all the alarm on display, not much happens in Evanston Salt Costs Climbing. Arbery deserves credit for getting at the profoundly upsetting issue of ecological disaster, tying it to a more general sense that society is drifting, aimlessly, toward ruin. But his play ends up chasing its own tail, pursuing the same points repeatedly, to diminishing effect. By the time Jane Jr. once again asks, "Do you think there's something underneath everything that wants us to die?" the thought has lost its power to provoke. This, I suspect, is not what the playwright intends
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Talkin' Broadway
November 16th, 2022

"In Will Arbery's strange and wonderful play 'Evanston Salt Costs Climbing,' the impending doom of climate change, economic precariousness, and urban decay are not merely abstract concerns.They are dark and stultifying forces that can make even time go out of whack."
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TheaterScene.net
November 25th, 2022

Will Arbery’s "Evanston Salt Costs Climbing" (set in the city in which the author received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in 2015) is a perplexing experience as it shifts from realism to absurdism to surrealism. Its worthy topic of ecology and climate change notwithstanding, the play’s repetitiousness and unprepared-for events are frustrating as well as the missing backstories. While it begins interestingly enough, it very quickly turns tedious and inexplicable. A noble experiment, "Evanston Salt Costs Climbing" is either for the select few or needs a rewrite or second draft.
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Front Row Center
November 24th, 2022

"There is anxiety, pressing against the rib cage, and grief that renders a body immobile, and the plain, dead weight of existential dread...these forces are lassoed into a lively and captivating 100 minutes of theater, even when time itself becomes unmoored."
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Off Off Online
November 17th, 2022

It adds up to an imaginative blend of workplace drama, climate-change allegory and existential plaint. Well, imaginative or exhaustingly offbeat—one’s perceptions may vary, and they might affect your appreciation for the play.
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