Ring Twice for Miranda NYC Reviews and Tickets

"This awkwardly plotted 'tragicomedy,' with its sketchy humor and one-dimensional characters, feels like a missed opportunity to deliver some timely satire regarding greed and privilege in the halls of power...The performances here are energetic...Hruska's contrived plot and choppy dialogue, however, make it difficult for the actors to create characters worth caring about. Director Rick Lombardo doesn't help in this regard, preferring instead to wow the audience with special effects."
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"This one is likely to go down as one of the season's real head-scratchers...It doesn't help that the characters behave and speak like no human beings ever seen...Rick Lombardo's production is certainly polished and his cast is remarkably committed, when they aren't mugging shamelessly...'Ring Twice for Miranda' is fantasy suffering from a case of insufficient imagination. It never establishes a coherent world and the characters' motivations are often left bewilderingly unclear."
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"An almost unbearable two-hour evening...Hruska defuses any potential insight with his quick dips into apocalyptic absurdism, ostensibly in imitation of (or paying homage to) Samuel Beckett...This isn't regimented or coherent enough to be satire. If it's intended as serious drama, its frequent comedy is at odds with rather than in tune with the underlying distress. And if laughs are the goal, their dark shadows are forever fighting them for focus rather than enhancing their necessity."
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"Hruska dabbles in existential world-weariness, classism, apocalyptic darkness, the Holocaust, spinning it skillfully, if pretentiously, into a surreal entertainment that induces much head-scratching but is not without its literate pleasures, not to mention fine acting and surprisingly intriguing production values."
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"The actors fit into this nihilistic dystopian scenario well but it is like watching a straight jacket being slowly strapped up. The plot is too slight to justify the length of the play…The playwright Alan Hruska has strong feelings about his subject, but the play doesn’t provide characters deep enough to communicate his message, witty though they may be. However, the director Rick Lombardo has given the actors a good realistic base that serves to give grounding to the darkly absurd situation."
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"I can think of several reasons why Mr. Hruska would take a stab at this idea...What I do not understand is why or how this script was chosen for a full production. It lacks substance, and the story line has no pulse. In addition, what were the director Mr. Lombardo’s thoughts as he assembled the many pieces of this narrative? His direction–literally, as in what direction was he going–was never clarified. More’s the pity, because everyone involved in a production works hard."
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"All that work from the main players in the power struggle, Elliot and Miranda trying to hold onto their humanity, keeping the tension in a place of mystery and realism, starts to fall away as secrets and dynamics are revealed. The reactions of others are generally believable but the one big reveal doesn’t make as much sense at it should to really power home the conclusion...The second half fails to shed light on the dynamic. It disappoints, leaving us as lost as those two servants."
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"Rick Lombardo directs with a charming gracefulness...'Ring Twice for Miranda's' chilling dystopian themes and its delusional narcissistic Sir become even more relevant in the current political climate in America. The play raises important and enduring questions but does not have the dramatic strength to carry the weight of these rich questions...That said, Mr. Hruska’s new play explores the dimensions of tyranny and the loss of personal freedom in a convincing way."
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