Shades NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (106)
See it if You're looking for a family drama centered around the effects of war on families and soldiers. The older actor is especially great.
Don't see it if You're looking for a comedy or something light or a play with many characters and a big production budget. It's a small, but strong cast.
See it if You want a smart, unique take on veterans & the disconnect w/people who weren't there. You like intense drama.
Don't see it if You don't want to hear war stories. You want a light comedy.
See it if You're willing to have your heart and mind given an emotionally powerful experience.
Don't see it if You refuse to sit still for anything except light feel-good entertainment. Read more
See it if a heavy, powerful, and emotional play dealing with the soldiers’ mental state and the conflicts they face when they become civilians.
Don't see it if you like comedies.
See it if you can deal with some of the realities of war the government doesn't want to admit to.
Don't see it if if you are not emotionally stable when it comes to war
See it if If you want to see something highly dramatic and not afraid of a dark outcome. It makes you think. Makes you angry about power and lies.
Don't see it if If you want to leave the theater happy and light. This won't.
See it if you're interested in a play dealing with the impact war has on those who serve and the people who love them.
Don't see it if you don't want to see a heavy drama.
See it if You want to understand more about PTSD or are a veteran who could identify w/the experiences told. 2 generations of vets dealing w/fall out~
Don't see it if Seemed more a treatise about PTSD than a play. Was extremely slow and hammered home the same points again & again &..Less talk & more drama.
Critic Reviews (6)
"Caplan has filled the play with multiple problems regarding the emotional and physical toll of war...The cast members, under Alex Keegan's direction, do well with roles that essentially serve to present the playwright's urgent message...Nevertheless, as a theatrical work, it could do with a more realistically human touch. Despite the heated issues it raises, 'Shades' needs less talking and more dramatic heat to fire up its audience."
Read more
"Playwright Paula J. Caplan has had an extensive career as an academic and one gets the sense that the testimonies that she offers here are based on primary research...Unfortunately, the play lacks action...'Shades' feels less like a play and more like a chance to pick the brains of veterans over a cup of coffee. Under the direction of Alex Keegan, some of the performances are quite successful."
Read more
"'Shades' is more a textbook than a play. And any comparisons to Eugene O’Neill are delusional. If Dr. Caplan truly wants to make a mark in theater, and not just use it as a tool for expounding her psychological theories, she needs to study the art as well as the science. The dialog is extremely stilted, the first act is way too long, and the attempts at comedy fall flat...I will say that the cast gave it a valiant effort...I admit to being moved at the end, but it was a long row to hoe."
Read more
"The last 15 minutes of the show are rather heartbreaking and poignant. On the other hand, this story of a family reeling from the traumas of war is a sluggish exercise of enduring poor playwriting and, for the seasoned theatergoer, it is primarily a forced melodrama in need of some serious surgery…Forced, unrealistic dialogue runs rampant…The major problems with 'Shades' are the lack of nuance and subtly. The characters are clichéd and rarely believable."
Read more
"While the themes are ones that should never be forgotten, the heavy-handed script contains an overwhelming number of worst-case scenarios afflicting the four inter-related characters…As a result, 'Shades' plays more like a relentless socio-political diatribe on recent history than a focused work of theater, exhaustively presenting, en masse, information that has been known for decades…The cast is hindered by often stilted implausible dialogue.'
Read more
"In a play of drawn-out reveals, none of it is withheld from its audience. We bear full witness to the conflict and confusion within each character, emphasized through vivid performances erupting in Cherry Lane’s Studio Theatre. Collins in particular has a mannered delivery, perhaps signaling her character’s hunger for immediacy in communication, calling to mind the military’s guidelines to transparent communication."
Read more