Oratorio For Living Things NYC Reviews and Tickets
About the Show
Production Covid-19 Safety ProtocolsMember Reviews (51)
See it if If you want an evening of great music. Immersive, soulful.
Don't see it if If you want a traditional show.
See it if you want to see something both entertaining, original and mesmerizing.
Don't see it if you don't like just singing with no plot dialogue.
See it if well composed and sung oratorio. music is key here, not the words. harmonies were glorious.
Don't see it if want a story. this is just a bunch of songs around a topic and most of the lyrics were unintelligeable.
See it if Like a playful yet graceful shower of harmonic singing filling into a bath. Little confusing at first, but just let the music in.
Don't see it if ~80% isn't intelligible (Latin + lot of singing over each other); less about plot/understandable words, more about feels; intimate space. Read more
See it if you're into the idea of a theatre piece that's more immersively staged choral performance than plot-driven show; gorgeous music abounds
Don't see it if you're looking for a traditional book piece Read more
See it if You enjoy non-linear theatre pieces and or contemporary classical music.
Don't see it if You dislike pieces where the intention may not be to have you perfectly understand each moment as it happens. Read more
See it if you are open to an in-person experience that doesn't have to mean anything. You're open to just feel.
Don't see it if you demand a linear narrative in everything you see. Read more
See it if Nothing else even comes close to what is happening on Barrow Street. Any fan of Dave Malloy’s Octet. Elemental.
Don't see it if Immersive and sometimes incoherent, as is life. May require a second visit.
Critic Reviews (9)
"Profoundly strange and overwhelmingly beautiful...If the text is sometimes baffling and hermetic, it is confident enough in its oddness that you do not worry about crashing when it flies close to the twee line...What’s haunting is how the oratorio form and Christian’s private cosmology elevate such banal statements to an almost sacred plane. Alternating in the classical manner between massed choral singing and solo arias — all exquisitely performed under the music direction of Ben Moss — she throws several centuries of musical styles into the pot and swirls them around."
Read more
"5/5 stars! A sui generis meditation on time and existence, a classical choral masterwork infused with pop, blues and gospel. A dozen superlative vocalists and six marvelous instrumentalists make sense and aural spectacle out of Christian's compositions...Lest that sound pretentious, be assured that 'Oratorio for Living Things' is, above all, exhilarating."
Read more
"I have always been a little annoyed by dramatists’ slipshod use of scientific principles — perhaps because I’ve seen too many plays that shoehorn quantum theory into human relationships...But Christian smashes through that old prejudice of mine. As her smiling performers, all in beautiful voice, sing that we are 'made for collision' because of our atomic makeup, I believed it. The 'Oratorio for Living Things' uses music to dissolve the listeners into their fundamental particles, then uses simple choreography and intimate eye contact to reorganize us."
Read more
"This collision of classical music, experimental theater, and theoretical physics generates so much creative energy, it feels like it could power every theater in New York...While no performer stands out, all make personal connections with the material and each audience member...Music director Ben Moss achieves an almost seamless vocal cohesion in a chorus that is always on the move, performing in the round."
Read more
"The 'Oratorio for Living Things' is a miraculous, thought-provoking celebration of hope, life, and the human spirit, ravishingly expressed through a brilliant fusion of music and theater."
Read more
"You can’t understand the delicate alchemy of performers and material, staging and design that have resulted in this transportive experience unless you witness it for yourself. Christian, director Lee Sunday Evans, and the soul-altering eighteen-person ensemble of singers and musicians have achieved something so intensely personal for the audience that it then unites the individuals into a collective...Christian’s composition is wholly original, often startling, occasionally hilarious. The sheer volume of complicated, avant-garde music the singers are tasked with performing from memory is a feat unto itself."
Read more
such a gorgeous, awe-inspiring concert of original music by Heather Christian that it feels like a religious experience. Indeed, the music — inflected with Baroque, gospel, blues, pop, and jazz — could work as a church service. A third of the songs are even in Latin… It’s not necessary to grasp fully what’s going on in order to appreciate the soaring score….[but] there’s no denying the show’s intellectual complexity
Read more
"'Oratorio' is unique in that it is like a mass—glorious and contemplative—but there is no single preacher. Instead, the ensemble of twelve performers...It is a sprawling topic, and Christian’s rich score provides all the wild and loving notes to give it its due. And while this mass reminded me of the inextricable ties between a church service and theater, I am not sure this particular piece needed theatricalizing: I would have preferred just to listen to it."
Read more
Trailer
Watch This Next (3)
Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork about a young artist grappling with identity.
The ghost-with-the-most comes to life in this rocking musical based on Tim Burton’s beloved film.
Ntozake Shange's groundbreaking performance piece is reborn on Broadway.