Octet NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (215)
See it if you like to see unique musicals that challenge you and give you a lot to think about.
Don't see it if you don't care for a cappella singing or musicals that go to some strange places. Read more
See it if You like thought provoking musicals. Octet forces us to confront our relationship with technology.
Don't see it if You are looking for a big musical with little thought required.
See it if What the human voice can do thrills you. Fabulous a cappella vocals that convey many moods.
Don't see it if You like a large production. Read more
See it if You love great singing and musicianship. Are interested is addiction, technology, counseling. Like Malloy's immersive approach to theatre.
Don't see it if Don't enjoy wonderful vocal performance and witty writing. Read more
See it if you love music source from everywhere in history.
Don't see it if church basement self-help groups are not your thing. This is an a capella evening about various internet addictions
See it if You enjoy amazing a capella singing with masterful harmonies. Have questions about whether technology is helping or hurting us.
Don't see it if If you need a big orchestra to make it feel like a musical, don't go.
See it if You love the music part of musicals. You're open to a "sung thru" a cappella show dealing with internet addiction.
Don't see it if No plot, not much dialogue, just characters singing about their problems. Read more
See it if You like a cappella, though-provoking subjects, are interested in technology, are looking for something completely different
Don't see it if If you don’t like small shows with big subjects
Critic Reviews (30)
"This one certainly got under my skin and had me thinking late into the night. It also forced me, quite intensely and wisely, to think twice before each and every impulse I had to look at my phone...It’s insanely beautiful and achingly real emotionality that forces itself on me even as I attempted to fall asleep after I got home from this enlightenment...The simpleness of this musical has one of the more important messages that the world seems to be desperate to hear and learn."
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“Malloy’s score plucks at the expressional impulses and tics of desire as music grounds its disturbed characters and their sentiments fluctuate from bliss to frustration to shame. The tone and lyrics speaks true to the toxicity of Internet spaces. ‘Octet' drenches itself in the psychedelic without overstepping its visual restraints...’Octet’ won’t cure you of screen obsession, but it will guilt-trip any second you stare at the screen after the show.”
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"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts...There are times when some of the threads seem without any meaningful content and become, unfortunately, lost on the audience. Dave Malloy’s music is exquisite in every way reflecting various styles composed and arranged with tight harmonies that support Malloy’s lyrics...Under Annie Tippe’s direction, the eight-member cast moves around the set with Jungian synchronicity and the grace displayed in synchronized swimming."
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“A beautifully sung a cappella chamber musical...So much feels so smart and spot-on...that theatergoers may want to excuse the show’s excesses...A boastful-seeming intelligence seeps into some of the lyrics...Too many of the characters get so much of this same high-toned vocabulary for us to hear it as part of each individual’s personality...Luckily, this first musical produced by Signature Theatre brings out enough of what’s best about Malloy’s work."
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"Over the course of an intermissionless hour and 45 minutes, Molloy's frequently brilliant music fails to sustain interest without the support of an engrossing dramatic script…Some songs are clearly marked 'hymn,' but, after a while, the reliance on a cappella gives them all a hymnal feeling… Aside from the choral passages, there's little interaction, and only a bare minimum of context for knowing any of these characters as people. Dramatic action is nil, suspense absent, and boredom imminent."
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"The relative failure, in my humble opinion, is the book, which I found confusing, uneven, rambling and a bit pretentious...The book’s shortcomings are, in large measure, balanced by the strength of the music, sung by excellent singers in creative a cappella arrangements...Tippe’s direction tries too hard to enliven the proceedings. In short, I admired the show more than I enjoyed it. Honesty compels me to report that younger members of the audience responded with vociferous enthusiasm."
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"The result is a disarming, intimate, and sonically absorbing exploration of Internet addiction, human connection, and nihilism in the year 2019...It is all easy to follow, and swallow—especially since the challenges the characters face are so bitingly familiar to anyone who participates in the digital age...Malloy’s text is too rich to fully appreciate upon first encounter...The music is mesmerizing and, in performance, particularly dazzling for the fact that there is no conductor."
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"This is a deliberately secular spin on a choral tradition that’s more typically heard in a religious setting, but the approach helps elevate the seriousness with which Malloy approaches his themes...However, there is a certain sameness that creeps into the individual songs...Still, 'Octet' is a thoughtful and thought-provoking exercise, directed with theatrical flourish by Annie Tippe and performed with consummate craft and musicianship by the eight-member cast."
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