"Sweet and scary, lackadaisical and hypnotic…A melancholy and often very funny portrait of four cusp-of-Medicare couples...Life often seems to be set on pause during the three leisurely, impeccably acted hours…'Rancho Viejo' has been directed with a poet’s appreciation for rhythm and emphasis by Daniel Aukin…Only in the last section does ‘Rancho Viejo’ start to feel a little too tidy…But the show’s final scene is a haunting beauty, a perfect balance of the everyday and the eternal."
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"The most compulsive theatrical viewing that sees three hours pass by in a flash of glorious agony...There is so much meat in LeFranc’s homemade tamale that you want to eat it all over again, get the recipe, and invite all your friends over...I feel I could write a dissertation on the work and how the creative team and cast inhabited this insightful play with such self-scrutiny and tangible transformations. It’s a big work, it has a giant cerebral cortex and an urgent heartbeat."
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"LeFranc blends bold formalist tricks with deep empathy for his characters’ frailties…At times 'Rancho' feels like a deadpan suburban comedy of manners in slow motion…Semi-absurdist tactics could be deadly with mediocre actors, but Aukin’s immaculate production shines with a smashing cast. The play is consistently funny...'Rancho Viejo' may seem oddly constructed and furnished, but it’s magnificently strange and welcoming once you get through the door."
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"Simultaneously stylish and frustrating…While some viewers will undoubtedly hail the play as a brilliant encapsulation of the human condition, even more are likely walk away feeling like their time has been wasted...Everyone in the cast excels at making this a watchable three-act nothing…Aukin is never able to fully resolve the problem of a script that is sarcastically self-aware while also calling for realistic performances...It all feels fashionable, sophisticated and incredibly safe."
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"Dan LeFranc's 'Rancho Viejo,' now receiving its world premiere in a handsome Playwrights Horizons production featuring a terrific cast, is one of those three-hour long plays that may find you tempted to flip through your program at any time for a clue as to what the heck is going on…Theatregoers have been discussing the meaning of ‘Waiting for Godot’ for over half a century. Discussions of the meaning of 'Rancho Viejo' shouldn't take up more than half a minute."
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"This kind of comedy needs especially delicate handling, which Daniel Aukin provides; his deft touch is especially welcome, because 'Rancho Viejo' isn't without its problems. A three-act play running three hours, it is much longer than it needs to be...You have to admire LeFranc's skill at spinning a kind of philosophical wonder, mixed with a touch of existential dread, out of the kind of empty chatter that so many people indulge over drinks and snacks."
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"A fascinating but severely overdrawn evening…This is a story that should tell itself and, in the best scenes, does…Unfortunately, this is not enough for either LeFranc or his director. They've piled on so much additional 'color,' 'content,' and 'plot' that the underlying, moving tale of contemporary cultural alienation must fight for its life during every single second of the play...By the final act, which is given over entirely to hyperinflated minutiae, you all but give up on it."
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"I found much in the play challenged my expectations of an engrossing, funny evening. Sure, Aukin and his crafts team nicely captured LeFranc's realistic surface as well as the surrealism underneath. And Blum and Winningham are terrific...But ‘Rancho Viejo's’ slow-building combination of super realism and its more absurdist underpinnings don't merge smoothly or all that meaningfully…The first two acts leave us with as many unsatisfactorily addressed questions as the last."
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