Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (44)
See it if READ THIS PLAY or see it when you can
Don't see it if You are not a feminist or wait in that case YOU should definitely see it Read more
See it if a whip-smart, playful, and ferocious play with trenchant and vital questions about patriarchy, revolution, womanhood, and cruelty. Electric.
Don't see it if you're looking for something less provocative and theatrical.
See it if you enjoy experimental theatre that makes you more self-critical, you like confronting "real life" with edginess and wit
Don't see it if you want to sit comfortably and mindlessly, you don't like subtle jokes, you don't like absurd and gory imagery
See it if You like far- out performance art, clever use of language and like being surprised at every turn. Very downtown vibe !
Don't see it if You are offended by raw language and any depiction of violence. You want to see a well structured play. This is performance art. Shocking !
See it if You are a feminist, if you're willing to be challenged and made uncomfortable, if you are open minded. Great work by a promising playwright.
Don't see it if You want a fun night of entertainment, also don't bring kids. Also SoHo rep is not exactly handicap-accessible.
See it if you're game for unpredictable jolts of non-narrative/post-dramatic theatre; if you wanna see really good actors dig in to complex material
Don't see it if you need a clear story; if you like a play to set its own rules & then follow them; if you prefer to "understand" what's happening on stage
See it if You're into fast-paced smart verbal combat where failure to empathize and communicate is foregrounded and no happy ending is offered.
Don't see it if You need formal plot structure, a long running time for your money, or detest that stage haze or a touch of pretentiousness.
See it if You like well-acted, well-staged, non-traditional plays about language and feminist/humanist ideas.
Don't see it if You prefer traditionally structured plays with set characters and a plot and prefer a story that gets neatly tied up by the end.
Critic Reviews (20)
"Alice Birch’s implosive play about the conundrums of being female in the 21st century...The ferocious energy that courses through this short, sharp shock of a production might be characterized as, well, kind of beautiful...Directed at the pace of a speeding cannon ball by Lileana Blain-Cruz...With a cast that revels in acting up and acting out, Ms. Birch’s work finds the theatrical exhilaration in civil disobedience."
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"Alice Birch’s angry flaying of the status quo, staged as a series of funny and horrifying vignettes. 'Revolt' comes in at 65 minutes, a perfect length. An hour and a half would seem conventional; two hours would grow unbearable. The linguistic and visual density that Birch and director Lileana Blain-Cruz achieve leaves you emotionally winded yet still engaged...If you peg 'Revolt' as a tidy, Caryl Churchill–esque feminist revue, wait and see how it takes arms against form itself."
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"A caffeinated and confrontational production…With its shocking tableaux, pithy false epiphanies, and pulsating scene transitions, 'Revolt' feels like an extended version of that 'Saturday Night Live' sketch about the theater troupe of socially conscious teens. In truth, Birch's writing is a lot funnier than anything you'll hear on 'SNL'…All of the performers do a fine job with this difficult work...'Revolt' is an orgy of revolutionary thought, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
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"The author's steady, unforgiving gaze, her ruthless way with clichés, and her radar-like ability to unearth buried notions about class and prejudice command one's attention, with alternately hilarious and horrifying results...All four performers, under the superbly controlled direction of Lileana Blain-Cruz, repeatedly deliver...Such fierce originality is exhilarating. This may be the most audacious debut by a British playwright in New York since Caryl Churchill."
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"'Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.' brings to mind the anarchic works of such predecessors as Sarah Kane ('Blasted'), or Jean-Claude van Itallie ('America Hurrah')...But Alice Birch, still in her 20s, offers an original and significant voice, and director Lileana Blain-Cruz and the fine cast at Soho Rep are giving that voice a chance to be heard in this all-out presentation of the play's U. S premiere."
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"Some of the scenes are hilarious, others shocking, others scattershot…While many of the scenes are right on target, others seem too metaphoric and anarchic to make much impression, while others take on too many targets to make their point...'Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again' is challenging theater which doesn’t always land where it wants. However, Alice Birch is definitely a unique new voice in the theater and someone to watch closely in the future."
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"Exhilarating and exhausting...I urge you, nay require you to see 'Revolt.' to witness the final sequence of the play that will not soon leave you and may, instead, leave you speechless and stumbling for words…Lileana Blain-Cruz leads an expert cast of four—Daniel Abeles, Molly Bernard, Eboni Booth, and Jennifer Ikeda—through a series of scenes with naturalistic ease…This latest Soho Rep concoction is an important one…Get yourself down here."
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"Birch’s first few vignettes are inventive, fast-paced, and deliciously funny...The play takes an uncomfortable and ultimately unsuccessful turn during a scene about motherhood that turns into a bloodbath of self-mutilation, and there it starts to lose us...We’re left with a final image seemingly pulled straight from a Taylor Swift music video that feels forced and confusing rather than empowering, leaving us with the dated and infuriating idea that feminists are trying to eradicate men."
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