In the Body of the World NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (139)
See it if You need more info on the plight of women
Don't see it if The reality of the world frightens you
See it if you loved the vagina monologues and want to see a master in the art of one person show.
Don't see it if you're pregnant or very sensitive to graphic descriptions of what happens to victims in war zones Read more
See it if you are brave, willing to be emotionally challenged, ready to laugh and cry, unafraid of hard truths, open to unsettling revelations
Don't see it if you want an easy night in the theatre that won't give you nightmares and make you count your blessings. Read more
See it if The work is powerful, finely crafted and is a painful journey of her health and the creation and life in The City Of Hope.
Don't see it if If topics of cancer and the disturction of woeman body’s thue rape and the sadness to know that the UN in the Congo is beyond corrupt . Read more
See it if Eve Ensler is beyond fantastic. I saw the first preview and it knocked my socks off. I hung on her every word and did not want show to end
Don't see it if You have no heart. You do not like one woman shows. You do not like thinking about what life and death really are.
See it if You can tolerate an honest one woman show. Exposes her views of life, illness, Mayo Clinic, Sloan Kettering and cancer business.
Don't see it if You are pro establishment and do not want to hear another person's vocal opinion on many subjects. Read more
See it if you enjoyed The Vagina Monologues. See it if you have ever had cancer. See it if you can relate to topical stories told by one person.
Don't see it if nudity, atrocities, or cancer bothers you. About 95% of the show was excellent. A bit here and there could have used some rewrite. Read more
See it if you're an Ensler fan, interested in fighting cancer and improving lives of young women in Africa, like 1-person shows & visual surprises
Don't see it if not interested in 1-person shows or author's experience fighting cancer or working with young girls in Africa, brief female nudity Read more
Critic Reviews (37)
"This is grim stuff...Ensler laces her tales with humor, gallows or otherwise...The play's intensely autobiographical self-focus will come off as liberating or oversharing...Rather than using Ensler's illness to illuminate the world's, it too often borrows from the world's suffering in an effort to legitimize her own...Ensler's disease would have been compelling enough on its own...The play itself, though, still ails; like most one-person shows, it needed a second opinion."
Read more
"The story moves through a passionate study of the horrors of disease. Ensler feels everything keenly, and she conflates her different pains: a sister’s slight is described in the same tone of shock as her horror at mass incarceration...It’s simultaneously appalling—surely she can hear the narcissism?—and true. This really is what it means to be stuck in a body. It’s the center of your universe, all the time."
Read more
"'In the Body of the World' is nothing if not self-satisfied and problematic...While the connection Ensler is attempting to draw between the disease of a single body and the ills of the world isn’t in itself troubling, the fact that all her stories also seem to bleed together — into a kind of showy solipsism masquerading as impassioned vulnerability — is...There’s almost a feeling of torture porn in her descriptions of the atrocities she’s witnessed or had recounted to her."
Read more
"A harrowing evening, alleviated by the writer-performer's frequent doses of mordant humor. Unfortunately, the evening also comes off as self-indulgent, lacking the thematic depth that would elevate it into something more than an account of personal suffering...The piece is more effective when it strains less for poeticism...At times, the piece feels like an extended therapy session...Would have been more effective as a simple lecture."
Read more
"Ensler is smart, funny, mostly fearless, empathetic - an engaging if sometimes tangent-plagued raconteur...Parts of 'In the Body of the World' are hard to hear...With a piece this intimately personal and politically significant, it feels churlish to take Ensler to task for stylistic shortcomings. Yes, the show is a mishmash of worthy concerns. But Paulus is comfortable with chaos, and helpfully reigns in the tangents, presenting each segment in a well-defined space."
Read more
"An intimate, shocking and touching tale...A bold, political work that is as personal and global as her signature work...Ensler connects the cancerous attack on her body with those women suffering from afar...Ensler presents it in a thoughtfully laid-out narrative quilt, made up of engaging frankness, measured sentiment, and disarming humor...It’s her knack of mixing the serious with the flip that keeps the air charged with sudden surprises and unexpected richness."
Read more
“Ensler adapted her harrowing, revelatory 2013 memoir into an equally harrowing, revelatory play…Paulus has drawn an astonishing, and astonishingly anti-maudlin performance from Ensler…Some of it is blessedly hilarious. Most of it isn’t. And yet ‘In the Body of the World’ is tough love, harsh medicine, a tonic...I came out rattled as I have rarely been rattled by any theater experience, devastated and blissful at the same improbable time.”
Read more
"Ensler doesn't tiptoe around a topic. She doesn't mince words. That unblinking, even brutal, bluntness is a strength in her solo play...Humor is another plus...She's not shy about revealing her scars - physical and psychic. It makes for anguished howl of a play...It's also a show that can meander and turn indulgent, even for a memoir...Directed with sensitivity by Paulus and enhanced by vivid projections, the play reminds that connection can arrive when and where it’s least expected."
Read more