Mary Jane NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (176)
See it if You enjoy intense powerful dramatic punches to the gut, great enemble acting, a production that puts women front and center.
Don't see it if You are looking for fluff, entertainment, or easy resolutions.
See it if you love phenomenal ensemble acting and if you like Herzog's work. It has quiet moments of brilliance, beautifully realistic character.
Don't see it if you don't want to do a little work in relating the character's experience to something bigger.
See it if you want to see a solid modern play delivered flawlessly by an expert cast
Don't see it if you demand larger themes or big social statements out of your pieces
See it if A quiet show about motherhood/caregiving appeals- heartbreaking moments for mother, with kindness of strangers. Audience roots for Mary Jane
Don't see it if 1 hour 35 minutes of mom taking care of critically ill child-not for everyone-those who have served as caregivers know this heartbreak/hope Read more
See it if the human condition with its all its ups & downs fascinated you. Not an easy play, but worth seeing.
Don't see it if You have or had had a severely ill child and are still grieving
See it if You’re interested in very real stories and dialogue about heavy, topical issues, including healthcare and disabilities.
Don't see it if You’re not interested in depressing plays about parents dealing with sick children.
See it if Sorry, reviewed wrong version of ply and don’t know how to delete
Don't see it if …
See it if You want a fresh, more realistic take on being a caretaker and spending time in the hospital
Don't see it if You want bigger conflict
Critic Reviews (42)
"Told with infinite grace and attention to detail. Kauffman has skillfully maneuvered four actresses who play eight characters in support of Coon...Coon avoids all semblance of cliché in playing the stoic Mary Jane...'Mary Jane' offers us more of an education on the intricacies and pain this mother must suffer than it does a story of suspense or one with surprise twists and turns...But the writing is so on target, the performances are so truthful, I found myself absorbed most of the way."
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"Subtly and smartly written by Amy Herzog, subtly and smartly directed by Anne Kauffman, and subtly and smartly acted by Carrie Coon, Liza Colon-Zayas, Danaya Esperanza, Susan Pourfar, and Brenda Wehle, 'Mary Jane' is one of those great evenings in the theater when the whole is larger than the sum of its parts, and its parts are damn good...There is much humor in the play, and tremendous compassion. It's exhausting, devastating, and beautiful."
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"There’s quiet devastation in the all-female voices of Herzog’s 'Mary Jane'...Herzog’s play does explode, but gently, exposing life around the edges of achingly ordinary domestic details...Each actress crafts characters with worlds of their own, adding new dimensions to the world of Mary Jane. Director Kauffman respects the nuanced pace and tone of the scenes and conversations...The revealing accumulation of events, like the revealing of the sets, sketch out Mary Jane’s complexity."
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“Beautiful, incredibly nuanced...One of the most finely-wrought productions I've seen in a long time seems evenly distributed across the entire company...One of those shows that grabs you quickly, and then only gets better the more you think about it...Quietly descriptive...Its refusal to slop into cheap sentiment is especially noteworthy...It's an astonishingly good production of an astonishingly good play...Make this the one show you rush out to see before it closes.”
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"Herzog has so subtly built the play—and director Anne Kauffman has so skillfully echoed the playwright’s desires—that one doesn’t see the conclusion coming. The performance was remarkably moving. At the end, there was a brief, silent pause. Then the audience broke into unusually strong applause. Performances are excellent. Carrie Coon easily carries the play, with strong support by all the cast...A remarkable theatrical achievement."
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"The exchanges that make up the bulk of 'Mary Jane' are well-acted and nuanced; what drama there is springs from the often-implied means the characters use to solicit support and strength...Kauffman directs the play as a chamber drama television show, meeting Herzog’s naturalistic speech rhythms with a staging that values stillness over action...What emerges is not so much a sketch of lone woman...but a portrait of a community of women, both onstage and off, vibrating uniquely, as one."
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“It was an incredibly compelling piece of theatre...It is a great play and production...Herzog has found a gifted collaborator in director Anne Kauffman, who maintains a laser-like focus on the journey of Mary Jane...The play rests on the shoulders of its incredible cast...A masterful turn of writing...If it may be said that a work of art has a soul, then this is such a work.”
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“An episodic portrait of the title character: a young, single, working mother (Carrie Coon) with the activity at the center of her life being the care of a chronically sick (always offstage) child...Under the unobtrusive, naturalistic direction of Anne Kauffman, ‘Mary Jane’ is a subtle, stage vérité portrait without answers; only empathy. Which is, here, appropriate and sufficient.”
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