Men on Boats NYC Reviews and Tickets
About the Show
This joyfully anachronistic retelling of the 1869 Powell expedition, originally produced by Clubbed Thumb, transfers to Playwrights Horizons as part of its Company Residency program.
Show-Score Member Reviews (72)
See it if You long to think, be challenged, and entertained by a talented cast!
Don't see it if Are challenged by non-traditional staging and casting.
See it if potent, finely-tuned ensemble in a funny, poignant quest story about frontiers past and present. A feminist charmer than runs on delight
Don't see it if you're feeling fragile about the masculine mythos (although the critique is pretty understated)
See it if you like historical plays, play featuring a great all-female cast, humor, and fun.
Don't see it if you're not in the mood for a fun, funny show that both celebrates & pokes fun at the American myths of frontiersmen and exploration
See it if you enjoy reenactments of historical events or if you ever explored a river in the 1860's.
Don't see it if boating accidents, anachronisms or cross-gender casting disturbs you.
See it if you want to see a play that's a combination of Hamilton, Peter and the Starcatcher, and SITP's Shrew all in one... and love Killer Ladies
Don't see it if you want a tame, old play that is known to you, and you don't want to see a play breaking some norms in a really sick way
See it if You enjoy seeing the gender switch with women playing all the male roles. It plays that fine line of being campy, but not over the top.
Don't see it if You do not like a play that is very loud. Your distracted by actors using the aisles of the theater, no matter how small the venue.
See it if History made easy and fun! See it if you like to laugh, see great acting, staging, direction and creativity. I thought it was wonderful.
Don't see it if you are bothered by a show's occasional wanderings or you dislike history being presented in a very humorous fashion.
See it if edgy, innovative, skillfully written theatre
Don't see it if preconceptions shattered
Critic Reviews (26)
"Director Will Davis helms the onstage foray into the unknown with a steady yet agile hand...Movement is a key element of the adventure’s enactment and plays a large part in its left-handed appeal…Davis has assembled a top-notch design team…The cast is up for a good time and delivers one to the audience. Performances are italicized but only slightly; no one goes overboard…It’s the ensemble that stands out, more than any one performer."
Read more
"A hilarious and ultimately very moving play…Backhaus’s writing is gorgeous. Perfectly paced jokes, melancholy and hopeful monologues, and vividly conjured characters run amok to create a thrilling portrait of this group of men…Davis’s direction and staging are, to put it plainly, flawless…Without water, Davis is freed from a literal reading of the play, and as such, takes his audiences on a delirious, whiskey-fueled trip across the Wild West."
Read more
"An enjoyable mash-up of a send-up and an extended 'Saturday Night Live' sketch...Backhaus gives the historic events a contemporary flavor...The action of the play is somewhat repetitive unfortunately...But the send-up is pure fun and the audience is engaged and responsive. The cast is uniformly excellent...What is innovative in 'Men on Boats' is the play succeeding in not simply being a parody of an iconic post-Civil War Expedition, but a parody of itself. That creates the best humor."
Read more
“Powell’s classic tale of chills, thrills, and spills...would seem unlikely fodder for a stage play, given its potential technical obstacles. That didn’t stop playwright Backhaus and director Will Davis from creating this arrestingly theatricalized version...Davis’s imaginative staging uses sharply choreographed movement to suggest all the dangers the men confront...‘Men on Boats’ is an ensemble piece in which all the actors deserve applause for bringing their colorful characters to life.”
Read more
“Backhaus seems to have little interest in Major Powell. Her main interest is in telling a tale of high theatricality, and heightening every heroic, mock-heroic and cud-spitting masculine affectation by having her backwoodsman played by talented, non-male cast…The magic comes from the writing, the direction—on an all-but-empty stage with five upstage doors and some projections—and the cast…’Men on Boats’ makes a briskly breezy evening.’”
Read more
“The top-notch cast, ably directed by Will Davis, recreates the rhythms of daily life, the rivalries, the insecurities, the dangers and defections the group endured...The play’s gimmick is that all the roles are played by women...For the first twenty minutes or so, this worked for me. However, the play soon became repetitive and cartoonish. It eventually seemed like a very long pointless skit that trivialized its subject and wore out its welcome."
Read more
"An enormously imaginative, humor-peppered melodrama…To a person, the actors play it straight…It’s a broad, well-drawn picture studded with practical details and relationship nuance…'Men On Boats' feels immersive. Time spent navigating treacherous water is immensely vivid…I can’t imagine how director Will Davis conceived what we saw out of what he read. This is a glass mountain climb with roaringly successful results."
Read more
"The actresses playing these roles clearly relish the chance to flex those muscles and although some are better than others they're all good and it's really great to see such diversity among them in terms of ethnicity, age and even body type. The play is larded with wit that doesn't make fun of the idea of women playing men...And Davis' direction is just as entertaining."
Read more