Incantata NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (66)
See it if Love poety, art or amazing solo acting. Appreciate investigations of and ruminations on love and loss.
Don't see it if Need a linear story line. Dislike one person shows. Reject contemplation of mourning and loss.
See it if Layered, complex, poetic and altogether wonderful
Don't see it if Don’t like non-linear monologue performances
See it if you love the poetry of words. A very sad, very beautiful, very loving elegy for the poet's wife, brought to life in a harrowing way
Don't see it if you hate poetry, prefer conventional theater with a clear plot line, don't like sad pieces
See it if Solo performance of an Irish poem using props as characters. Excellent use of video unlike WWS.
Don't see it if You like multi characters and a linear plot. Its's poetry and requires attentive listening.
See it if you want to see a mournful poem come to life. I had read the poem several times before the play which made his enactment more meaningful.
Don't see it if you're not a poetry fan and prefer more subdued (this performance isn't understated) theatrics.
See it if an intensely present, imaginative, dense rendering of Paul Muldoon's poem staged with attentiveness and alertness to mystery.
Don't see it if if one person explorations of loss and grief through a multi-layered poetic lens is not for you, you may find this tough-going
See it if You want to see a sad but beautiful elegy to a lost love. Heartfelt acting by Stanley Townsend.
Don't see it if You need more action and not interested in poetry. Read more
See it if you like one-person shows about loss
Don't see it if you don't like a one-person show involving a dramatic recitation of a poem about loss
Critic Reviews (8)
CRITIC’S PICK "An Elegy in Words, Video and Potatoes: A solo stage adaptation of Paul Muldoon’s poem considers whether making art can offer solace in the wake of grief."
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"His work is richly allusive, yet accessible and filled with feeling…Sam Yates' production, first seen at the Galway International Arts Festival, is impossibly busy, a festival of distractions that further frustrates any attempt at direct communication between actor and audience."
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"'Incantata' is a passionate exploration of the complexities of a relationship between two artists. It is a vivid onstage testament to their art, lives, love and loss. And who can't relate to that?"
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3/5 Stars. "Paul Muldoon's feverishly elegiac portrait of a man both crazed and inspired by grief, played by a ferociously committed Stanley Townsend"
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"Some books and movies and poems do not lend themselves to theatricalization, and that's certainly the case with 'Incantata'...Though it's only 80 minutes long, it felt like an eternity--and not only because of the story--but also the telling."
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"There is a freedom here to be ugly, to be truthful, to be honest, and to explore the telling of this story of love and loss."
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"One of the most powerful theatrical experiences of the current off-Broadway season. Throughout the sixty-minute performance, Stanley Townsend embodies the spectrum of Muldoon's emotional reverie."
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"Notwithstanding Townsend's ardent acting or the play's poetic values and the painful loss they express, though, 'Incantata' remains an abstruse poem that lacks the dramatic power to evoke what its title promises-enchantment."
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