On the Shore of the Wide World NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (130)
See it if You enjoy dramas about family relationships and the trials of life.Good acting but slow and the lower class British accents may be a problem
Don't see it if You only enjoy musicals and simple dramas.
See it if You want to see these actors who were all terrific. However the play wasn’t that compelling. The set was interesting.
Don't see it if You want a fast paced drama. This is fairly slow and meandering. I usually like that sort of show if done well but somehow this didn’t gel Read more
See it if You appreciate intense family drama and Simon Stephens
Don't see it if You like a play that flows clearly. This needed cutting.
See it if You tend to agree with NYTimes reviews and are a Simon Stephens fan.
Don't see it if You like fast moving plays.
See it if you want to see a talented group of actors come together to play a family.
Don't see it if you can be confused by a play with shifting times and feels very long.
See it if you like slow British plays about complicated families.
Don't see it if you have anything better to do.
See it if You like family dramas where everyone has secrets. Some things you only find out much later (death of the other son).
Don't see it if You are looking for anything to happen. The actors were mostly good, however, some of them were obnoxious. Their lives were honest. Read more
See it if You like family dramas. The language is at times insightful.
Don't see it if I found this play too long and too slow.
Critic Reviews (29)
“Half an hour of such melodrama can be an agreeably un-taxing way of passing a weekday evening in front of the TV. But, at two and half hours with an interval, ‘On the Shore of the Wide World’ soon begins to feel rudderless. What’s missing is any attempt to weave the story of one troubled family into a broader social tapestry…The pacing here is also anything but swift under Neil Pepe’s direction, which increasingly loses focus as the saga wears on.”
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"There are compellingly explosive moments, to be sure, but what also grabs you–perhaps even more–is the understated web of feeling and enduring attachments created in Stephens' writing and beautifully realized by the cast under Neil Pepe’s sure but sensitive direction...At the center of the play is C.J. Wilson’s splendid portrayal of Peter...What is clear is Stephens’ deep compassion for his characters, his artfulness in bringing them to life and making you feel for them."
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"The work covers no new ground and makes no sweeping statements, yet it succeeds brilliantly due to every moment coming across as real...Stephens has done a brilliant job in making these characters resonate so strongly...Neil Pepe’s direction is quite strong...Probing, intimate, and deliberately untidy, 'On the Shore of the Wide World' shows just what the concept of 'family' can entail. At the same time, it examines the joy, comfort, pain, and responsibility that go with it."
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"A sprawling family story that’s less a careful examination of any character’s experience as a wash of themes, romances, and challenges from a soap opera...Despite some solid performances from the ensemble, the play takes so much time with characters and plot points that it moves at a glacial speed...A calm beginning yields to a calamitous, yet somehow muted explosion...A family story, burdened with extra details, finally edges into something that occasionally moves."
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"Director Neil Pepe finesses the play’s intense realism, developing each scene with the utmost attention to detail, and to the ongoing life on the stage. Often the events in the characters’ lives are disturbing...Still, it all comes across as plausible, even quotidian. What could be more predictable, after all, than bad marriages and dysfunctional families? Throughout, the actors carry the action, keeping us tuned in to their sad and sordid affairs."
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