Pipeline NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (174)
See it if You want a most absorbing evening, the writing,acting and staging are perfect..90 minutes of great theater a very interesting audience
Don't see it if This is nothing to sleep through. The playwright is right on the money. Pay attention
See it if you want to stay on the edge of your seat for 90 minutes of terrific theatre
Don't see it if you want 90 minutes of theatre for the tired businessman
See it if you are passionate about commentary on the public school system in relation to race relations; you've never been to a Lincoln Center show
Don't see it if you might be triggered by discussions of violence Read more
See it if you read Ta-Tehisi Coates Between the World & Me, this play is a dramatization some his messages and it is just as insightful.
Don't see it if you are not ready to have your assumptions challenged and ready to fully appreciate that everyone does not experience the world the same way
See it if want to see a well written and acted show about high school students coping with their education and parents. Very topical.
Don't see it if you don't care about the plight of high school students.
See it if you want to be challenged and placed in a situation where the only choice is to face some difficult questions, you want something relevant
Don't see it if you are uncomfortable with discussions of race, you dont enjoy being close to performers, or if you want to leave happy and satisfied
See it if You enjoy plays dealing with family and social issues
Don't see it if You want some light entertainment
See it if you like intelligent well-written, well-acted, thought-provoking drama on a topical subject.
Don't see it if you want light-hearted plays with little or no message or dramatic impact.
Critic Reviews (29)
"From Dominique Morisseau, the author of the critically acclaimed 'Skeleton Crew,' 'Detroit '67' and 'Sunset Baby,' comes another powerfully provocative and riveting, but overwrought, play which investigates black rage, racial stereotyping, and parental mistakes. Just try to take your eyes off the high octane production by Lileana Blain-Cruz, which has been brilliantly cast with its six actors, all but Karen Pittman (the Pulitzer Prize-winning Disgraced) making their Lincoln Center Theater debuts."
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"The cast is outstanding; Blain-Cruz has found a theatrically satisfying way into the social and political points Morisseau is making...The characters overall are somewhat too convenient stand-ins for the issues that inspired the play. Fortunately, the acting and staging is good enough to make us buy into seeing everyone as real flesh and blood people...I found that the author reached a bit too hard for metaphoric lyricism...Yet the lesson itself is wonderfully pertinent and theatrical."
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"An intense and powerful play that is thought-provoking, but nothing new...The play doesn’t always work, albeit director Lileana Blain-Cruz does her utmost to flesh out the powerful portrayals...The cast is compelling but the choice of Namir Smallwood (an intensely brilliant actor) appears miscast as he is too old for the role of a teenager."
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“The arena-style seating provides the perfect vantage point for the grudge matches, gut punches and emotional jabs of Dominique Morisseau’s poignant ‘Pipeline’…The casting of Mr. Smallwood as Omari is a risk that mostly pays off. He brings sensitivity and intensity to each of his scenes, and is no less than stunning in that climactic confrontation with Xavier. But, being in his mid-30s, there was not one moment where I actually believed he was a high school student.”
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"It’s a compelling few minutes in an equally compelling play, one that borders on cliche but doesn’t fall victim to that trap. The cast won’t let it fall...The two-character scenes are what make this piece tick with such wild lyrical poetry and abandon. They are the dynamics that mostly populate this dissertation on race, rage, and the Black American existence, and tend to be the most powerful."
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"Morisseau’s engrossing but somewhat undercooked new play offers a keen character study of a mother and son whose lives are imperiled by a reckless and passionate choice, but fails to fully integrate the specifics of Nya and Omari’s situation within the broader context of the school-to-prison pipeline that lends the play its title…A finely oiled production, but I could not help feeling that Morisseau did not push the material to its limits."
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"Morisseau masterfully upends the tired assumptions that might attach to such a drama, in a play that is not just smart and engaging, it is also the most literate of any I’ve seen this year...All six characters in 'Pipeline' are given their due, aided immeasurably by some outstanding performances...We are treated to Morisseau’s gifts, which include not just her compassionate portrayals and an easygoing grasp of literary poetry, but her exquisite ear for delightful everyday poetry."
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"Providing insight into an important societal issue while also deftly exploring the stories of individual, well-drawn characters has quickly become the trademark of the extremely gifted playwright Dominique Morriseau. Her latest–and perhaps strongest work–'Pipeline,' now being given an exemplary production under Lileana Blain-Cruz’s nuanced direction, continues that tradition brilliantly."
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