How to Transcend a Happy Marriage NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (199)
See it if You want to see an incredible company perform an incredibly raw, sophisticated, sexy, intelligent play! Lena Hall, Marissa Tomei - Stellar!
Don't see it if You cringe at anything outside the box of your own comfortable existence. This play makes your heart beat race. The intensity is fantastic!
See it if you like shows that challenge the audience to really think about relationships, sex and love. Marisa Tomei best performance of the year!
Don't see it if you have a very closed mind and don't want to be confronted with other realites.
See it if You enjoy Sarah Ruhl's work. It is a bit raunchy but has some truly heartfelt moments.
Don't see it if N/A
See it if Sarah Ruhl's writing resonates to you and you enjoy listening to a smart feminist art
Don't see it if you're easily offended by an intelligent feminist piece and a discussion of sex on stage.
See it if If you like contemporary theatre challenging old styles of thought and normality. It's an interesting play that twists into something else
Don't see it if You are uncomfortable with non heteronormative relationships and way of thinking
See it if You don't mind facing some of humanities big yet un-asked questions. It's light and funny and then at the same time very profound
Don't see it if You aren't willing to delve into an at times abstract look inward at the contradictions of modern day relationships and sexuality.
See it if Marisa Tomei leads a first rate cast; Sarah Ruhl continues to explore the sexual awakening of her characters
Don't see it if The fantastical often occurs in the play
See it if You love Marisa Tomei and are willing to examine traditions surrounding marriage, love, family and relationships.
Don't see it if If you can't tolerate explicit language, sex and nudity on stage. Not appropriate for children under 13.
Critic Reviews (35)
"An idea-inebriated, unsteady comedy...Fanciful mysticism and anchoring reality coexist less comfortably in 'How to Transcend a Happy Marriage' than they do in other works by Ms. Ruhl. Though the cast members are uniformly agile and appealing, they seldom seem entirely at home in their characters’ skins...The elements never quite coalesce into a single fluid stream of thought or story. Ms. Ruhl is suspended ambivalently here between satire and empathy."
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"Sarah Ruhl has written an amiable hour about monogamy and its discontents...Then, unfortunately, Ruhl inserts an intermission, spins out 35 more minutes of chatty whimsy...A light, frolicsome one-act mutates into a mediocre marriage play...If 'How to Transcend' were a tryst, it would be two hours of light foreplay followed by your partner drifting abstractedly into the next room to browse books on Eastern philosophy. Eventually, you get up and leave, quite unsatisfied."
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"Taichman appears to have encouraged the entire cast to play it large and play it for laughs, which are mostly not forthcoming...Surrealism undermines the play at every turn...If you think of it as a daydream or an anthology of oddities, 'How to Transcend' is potentially fascinating. But as a play—even the carefully artificial kind that Ruhl, almost uniquely, sometimes pull off—it’s surprisingly dry and importunate. The proportion of ideas to people is out of whack."
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"Until this point, Ruhl has been content juxtaposing complacency and adventure, and the usual ideas of youth versus maturity...Soon, those ideas begin to lose focus for us; they become less engaging, more annoying. It’s possible that the usually astute director Taichman has ceded editorial control over the goings-on, for 'How to Transcend' reads better than it plays in this production–the fine work of fine actors notwithstanding. The takeaway is more head-scratching than transcendent."
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"Sarah Ruhl’s play starts with promise, is skillfully acted and deftly staged by Rebecca Taichman, but after a magical twist, one of the author’s signatures, the story about the limits and limitlessness of love turns ungainly and less interesting...The play is too much."
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“The setting for this experimental piece is exceptionally handsome, and under the sure directorial hand of Rebecca Taichman, a tip-top cast headed by Marisa Tomei performs with brio. Nonetheless, the show is both baffling and boring…An initially provocative but eventually lame play…This new work has a lot on its mind that deserves our attention…But no solid matter emerges from these wink-wink hints at deeper substance.”
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"After a sexy and amusing first act, 'How to Transcend a Happy Marriage' goes downhill quickly...Director Rebecca Taichman has assembled a terrific ensemble for this production...They’re ultimately undone by the problematic script...Featuring fast and funny dialogue, the play initially seems to be operating on all cylinders. But the second act, which delves into magical realism, becomes hopelessly murky and confusing."
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"Unfortunately, the story is rather more bewildering than 'profound.' Amid a wealth of terrific, clever, laugh-out-loud dialogue are moments of total realness and others of supernatural wildness, yet none of it quite clicks into place...;How to Transcend a Happy Marriage' is funny and filled with great actors giving impressive, vulnerable performances. But ultimately, the lasting impression is less than the sum of its parts."
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