Prodigal Son
Closed 1h 35m
Prodigal Son
79

Prodigal Son NYC Reviews and Tickets

79%
(107 Ratings)
Positive
80%
Mixed
15%
Negative
5%
Members say
Great acting, Absorbing, Intelligent, Thought-provoking, Great writing

About the Show

Manhattan Theatre Club presents John Patrick Shanley's world premiere starring Robert Sean Leonard about a 17-year-old from the Bronx attending a private school in New Hampshire.

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Show-Score Member Reviews (107)

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269 Reviews | 181 Followers
89
Great acting, Great staging, Great writing, Intelligent, Resonant

See it if You want to see a brilliant young performer.

Don't see it if You are looking for a light hearted romp.

88 Reviews | 37 Followers
89
Absorbing, Great acting, Resonant, Thought-provoking, Great staging

See it if You like autobiographical stories about unsettled teens navigating a rocky adolescence guided by "adults", some damaged themselves.

Don't see it if You'd find a very personal story about adolescence indulgent; if you believe everyone needs to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps.

58 Reviews | 8 Followers
87
Absorbing, Great acting, Great writing, Resonant, Relevant

See it if you want to experience a veritable master-class in acting by the young lead actor.Enjoy autobiographical pieces that are beautifully written

Don't see it if you don't want to be faced with morally ambiguous characters.

150 Reviews | 22 Followers
86
Absorbing, Entertaining, Funny, Great acting

See it if You're a fan of John Patrick Shanley's plays and/or Robert Sean Leonard, and if you like stories looking back at growing up in the 60s.

Don't see it if Don't like period pieces or stories that question the tenets of Catholicism.

305 Reviews | 52 Followers
85
Absorbing, Refreshing, Intelligent

See it if you like good drama.

Don't see it if you don't care for playwright self reflection.

158 Reviews | 33 Followers
85
Great acting, Riveting, Intense, Absorbing, Intelligent

See it if ...you like coming-of-age bio-dramas, intense scenes of teen angst & confusion, & great acting by Robert Sean Leonard & Timothee Chalamet.

Don't see it if ...you're bored by autobiographical memoirs & tales of teen angst and are not a fan of Robert Sean Leonard or plays by John Patrick Shanley.

158 Reviews | 201 Followers
85
Clever, Intelligent

See it if You are a literature buff and want to have a cerebral theater experience

Don't see it if Your looking for something easy and light. This is dense and intense theater

186 Reviews | 25 Followers
85
Great acting, Intelligent, Indulgent, Thought-provoking, Great writing

See it if You like philosophical intelligent coming of age stories

Don't see it if Dislike self indulgent plays

Critic Reviews (36)

Entertainment Weekly
February 10th, 2016

"Shanley crafts a captivating warts-and-all portrait of not only a budding artist but also an average teenager struggling to find himself...We all spent at least a few angst-ridden months (or maybe longer), like Jim, in 'a special, beautiful room in hell.' Thankfully, we have writers like Shanley to bring us back — for a brief, but intense, emotion-packed 95-minute trip."
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AM New York
February 9th, 2016

"The 95-minute drama is raw and choppy, with long gaps in time between some scenes, meandering discussions of philosophy and a heavy reliance on direct narration. At times, it resembles a heavy-handed takeoff of 'The Catcher in the Rye.' But on the whole, it is an engaging and candid coming-of-age piece."
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Theatermania
February 9th, 2016

"On the whole, though, 'Prodigal Son,' both on page and in production, never completely rises to the level of curiosity we feel about its protagonist...It doesn't offer particularly new insights into the genre...The script moves slowly, and a solid half of the 100-minute running time is devoted either to exposition or to mood setting. And a late-in-the-game twist registers with more of an 'of course' than an 'a-ha.'"
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BroadwayWorld
February 10th, 2016

"Despite the central character's aggressions, Shanley directs the ninety minute drama as a soft and sentimental memory. The action is sparse, the tension is mild and the plotting always seems more or less familiar. Leonard's character describes Quinn as 'the most interesting mess we have this year,' but 'Prodigal Son' is neither interesting or nor messy enough to make an impact."
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Lighting & Sound America
February 17th, 2016

"The young actor Timothée Chalamet captures the exact temperature of Jim's fevered intellect, guiding us expertly through the logical hairpin turns and alarming mood swings that make him such a bracing, if exhausting, fellow to have around...The playwright forces a climax that tries to address this and several other key points, but it is little more than a hurried, unsatisfactory attempt at wrapping up the play in a single grand gesture."
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Talkin' Broadway
February 9th, 2016

"'Prodigal Son' is not without merit. And it describes, if in oblique terms, the perils facing this artist as a young man...But it's tough to escape the fact that, for all his high talk, Jim is not particularly interesting at the head of his own story...So formulaic is Shanley's writing (and, by extension, his direction), in fact, that there's nothing on hand to detract from it."
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TheaterScene.net
February 16th, 2016

"Shanley overloads the ending with too many revelations on the part of the faculty, secrets which have not been properly foreshadowed. Nevertheless, the play is always engrossing and the portrait of Jim is fully three dimensional…It may just be Shanley’s best play in years...Also see the play for the remarkable debut of Timothée Chalamet from whom much more should be seen in the future."
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CurtainUp
February 9th, 2016

"A compelling, well cast memory piece that benefits from MTC's as usual superb stagecraft...While packed with incident and passionate interchanges, the new play as directed by Shanley, plays out in just 90 well-paced minutes...Instead of exciting swordplay to bring all these tensions to a head, the climax in 'Prodigal Son' is fought with verbal confrontations, the most poignant and disturbing between Jim and Alan Hoffman, the always supportive English teacher."
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