"Something went awry in this particular journey from truth to fiction, as if the play had become stuck in midmetamorphosis, like some mutant fairy-tale character frozen in an incomplete spell. 'Shows for Days' wants to be both harshly realistic and charmingly sentimental. And these disparate sides never entirely connect."
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"Few playwrights hone quips as sharply as Beane does, and LuPone is frequently hilarious. Thanks to them, 'Shows for Days' goes by speedily—sometimes too speedily. The uneven cast of six often seems to be rushing; important plot beats are blurry and confusing...Diverting and touching as it often is, there’s not much meat in this pottage."
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"In 'Shows for Days,' he’s written not merely a vehicle for Patti LuPone but a glossy,curve-hugging Ferrari of a comedy...So yes, a star vehicle. But whether it can be steered is a different matter; neither Beane, nor the director, nor anyone else seems to have found a way to keep it from veering all over the place."
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"While 'Shows for Days' is no masterpiece, it’s unfailingly funny and disarmingly sweet, and if you’ve ever had anything to do with amateur theater, it will fill you with memories of the way you were once upon a time...'Shows for Days' has a loosely knit, Kleenex-thin plot that makes an unconvincing swerve into melodrama after intermission. But the six actors, Ms. LuPone above all, squeeze every drop of comic juice from their campy zingers,"
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"Delicious and toothsome as each of these characters is, 'Shows For Days' comes with an outer costume more like the hard armor of situation comedy. The wise-crackling zingers prevail, and our own laughter, some forced, some guilty, prevents us from getting inside the Prometheus players in any meaningful way. And so 'Shows For Days' dissolves in the ether before we’ve even left the theater."
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"Broad-as-a-barn performances are par for the course in this funny — but faulty — comic valentine...As stage reflections go, it’s pretty standard. Characters are paint-by-numbers kooky. Beane is a proven king of the zing. And director Zaks knows his way around fast-paced comedy. But even the gags lose power when a story collapses into implausibility...Fortunately, the cast of pros compensate."
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"Bor-ring. Douglas Carter Beane tries to minimize the ho-hum factor by setting this play in a 1970s community theater troupe ruled by a diva played by Patti LuPone. Shrewd move, but the scribe neglects to fortify his spirited star and the boychick apprentice with a lucid plot, a coherent structure or even believable supporting roles."
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"'Shows for Days' is another prickly valentine to the theater, in a semi-fictionalized recollection of the playwright's simultaneous discovery of his vocation and his sexuality. The personal investment is dulled by characters that too rarely escape stereotype, and by writing that's not short on humor, but sacrifices poignancy through lack of focus."
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