Mary Page Marlowe NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (198)
See it if Non-linear puzzle play w/great acting. We see scenes in-between major events in Mary Page's life. Her character growth occurs off-stage.
Don't see it if You don't want to spend time after the play figuring out what happened. You don't like multiple actresses playing the same character. Read more
See it if you want to see Letts' "patchwork" of non-sequential vignettes in the life of an Everywoman (or a Nobody?), played skillfully by 6 actresses
Don't see it if you'll be frustrated that such a well-written, well-acted & well-directed play still somehow feels dull, detached & uninspired. Read more
See it if You really enjoy character-driven plays, where you take a deep dive into one particular person.
Don't see it if You dislike slow, talky plays with very little action — just flashback vignettes of somewhat-poignant times in a person’s life.
See it if Character study of one woman's quest to unravel what comprised her life. This reveal is the sort that Letts excels. Told on bi-level stage.
Don't see it if Multiple actors portray said character, with varying degrees of successful acting styles. Continuity suffers.
See it if you enjoy female-centric shows or stories about average people living familiar lives.
Don't see it if you prefer fast-paced shows or stories featuring extraordinary circumstances. There are no bells and whistles here.
See it if you want to see excellent performances in a play that seems built to showcase those performances at the expense of cohesive storytelling.
Don't see it if you want a show that has something to say. This show FEELS like it does but as I walked out I didn't feel like it left me with anything.
See it if Excellent acting. Story told with 6 actresses playing the same character across time. It worked well. I didn’t find that distracting.
Don't see it if You are not interested in seeing the life of a woman depicted. Read more
See it if you want to see an original concept—a woman's life played out in non-linear order by a group of excellent actresses. Fine work by director.
Don't see it if you need to follow a linear or chronological order to a play. Ultimately, everything does come together.
Critic Reviews (38)
"Gripping...Some of those moments flirt with inconsequence or facile symbolism...Another confidently expressive staging by Neugebauer, makes it coolly legible...On-the-nose moments...sometimes left me feeling that 'Mary Page Marlowe,' however gorgeously acted, might not be hiding much of anything in the switchbacks of its distorted chronology. But with patience, and some unscrambling to restore the story’s natural order in your head, you may find a few powerful American themes arising."
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"Fascinating...While the play’s wide scope keeps the audience at a bird’s-eye remove, its components are vivid close-up snapshots. Director Lila Neugebauer keeps Mary Page in hard, revealing focus even as the character sometimes smudges herself in denial or passivity. 'Mary Page Marlowe' combines moments of crisis into a longer view of time. It approaches life—this one life—with something that feels like wisdom."
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"Intermittently compelling, ultimately vanilla...It’s not hard to pick out the big themes in Letts’s play, which is part of what can make it feel surfacey despite its attempt to go deeper...It’s a tricky dance Letts is doing, as the man who’s literally pulling the levers and stipulating the roles in Mary Page’s life, while she grapples with her flickering consciousness of the fact that she’s allowed men to do just that. I wish I could have seen the character rebel against the playwright a little more."
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"It's a testament to the sensitivity of Lila Neugebauer's production of 'Mary Page Marlowe,' and the subtle connective thread binding the half-dozen actresses playing the title character at various ages, that the silences are when Tracy Letts' drama achieves its sharpest poignancy...The unimpeachably naturalistic dialogue reveals major and minor shadings throughout, but it's in the brief wordless moments of overlap during scene changes that the play's quiet force creeps up on you."
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"Director Lila Neuberger deftly threads these stories and women (woman?) together...I almost wish the Mary Pages could speak to one another through space and time...Maybe they could have helped each other cope, or issued warnings, that would have made the story a bit less formulaic. Nevertheless it’s interesting watching Mary Page Marlowe unfold all the parts of herself that made her who she is — laying all her cards out on the proverbial table."
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"Director Lila Neugebauer, who brilliantly grasped the big theatrical gestures in 'The Wolves' at Lincoln Center, is just as scrupulous about defining small but definitive moments...The episodic structure is as integral to the play as its content. It’s up to us to fill in the blanks, because this is how life is lived, in little fits and starts that we later recall and either re-live in our minds or decide to forget."
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“I called it ‘the most purely beautiful play that Mr. Letts has given us’ in my review of the Chicago premiere, and now...it looks—if possible—even more impressive...The plausibility of this production is also owing in large part to the six actors who play Mr. Letts’s small-town everywoman, all of whom look and sound as true to life as a sequence of snapshots by a master photographer. No less worthy of praise is the equally masterly staging of Lila Neugebauer."
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"What Letts is doing is technically neat. Hopscotching through decades, he’s controlling the flow of information...Neugebauer’s overly complicated production and structural limitations steadily diminish our investment in Mary...So much joy and tragedy should not make such dull viewing. And yet, when your hero is a passive cipher, it is...Letts is too skilled a writer for individual scenes and passages not to shine in isolation, but the whole leaves you unsatisfied."
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