Signature Plays NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (58)
See it if you like absurdist short plays or want to experience well-done, moody pieces that get you thinking.
Don't see it if you want a traditional play/story that is easily digested.
See it if you missed out on the absurdist movement of the 1960-1970'x. It is fun to reflect back on.. What was this?
Don't see it if you need less thought provoking theater. One has to laugh and cry at the Albee 15 minute play It was the first time for us for the last play
See it if You're a theatre aficianado and want to see a great production of three rarely staged plays.
Don't see it if You dislike more abstract/experimental theatre pieces that tend to test your patience.
See it if a fan of these playwrights & like absurdist fare that doesn't necessarily add up to 1+1=2. Kennedy play is complex and excitingly staged
Don't see it if Absurdist plays not your thing,If racially charged examinations of Black experience don't interest you. Fornes annoys the hell out of you.
See it if absurdist disturbing weird
Don't see it if the above
See it if you enjoy experimental theatre by well-known playwrights. If you are familiar with the plays and curious to see them done live.
Don't see it if You aren't into weird, surreal stuff. If you want easy-to-understand stories and characters.
See it if You love avant garde theater-- in this case Albee, Fornes and Kennedy.
Don't see it if You don't like challenging theater. The Kennedy play is the most challenging of the three with its subject of racism and violence.
See it if you want to see experimental theater.
Don't see it if you don't like theater that remains obtuse from start to finish. The Sand Box by E. Albee was okay. The other 2 were really bizarre.
Critic Reviews (15)
“How well do these plays hold up? They’re at the very least fascinating as period pieces….Director Lila Neugebauer gives all three a competent production; she and her design team are especially effective in the stagecraft of Kennedy’s play. It’s harder for me to judge the acting, since the intent of these playwrights was to keep us from naturalism, and the director’s aim seems above all to respect their intent.”
Read more
"‘Signature Plays’ is best considered as a well-produced educational event; it offers a seminal play by one of America’s best-known playwrights and two plays, one barely known and the other widely respected (if rarely performed), by ethnically diverse female dramatists. I suspect it will be of interest chiefly to academics and theatre students; for the general theatregoer, not so much."
Read more
“For someone like me who has a limited tolerance for absurdist theater, the results were not gratifying. Yesterday’s avant garde often seems quaint or just annoying today. Edward Albee’s ‘The Sandbox’ at least offered a bit of drollery and a chance to see three fine actors...The production values are first-rate with sets by Mimi Lien, costumes by Kaye Voyce and lighting by Mark Barton.”
Read more
"'Signature Plays,' a triple bill of one-acts, offers bizarre examinations of death, loneliness, and race...Not for the easygoing theatergoer who just wants to sit back and be entertained...The uneven evening concludes with Kennedy’s 'Funnyhouse of a Negro'...Too bad Neugebauer only gets the right tone for the witty 'Sandbox.' She lets 'Drowning' drown and 'Funnyhouse' is more like a haunted house."
Read more
"In Lila Neugebauer's production 'Signature Plays,' the new triple bill of familiar works doesn't create the electric charge these beloved creations have had for me in the past...Neugebauer has done little to make the works register; her impulse to add wildness to the wild work already in hand tends to muffle the scripts rather than helping them speak out...The impulse to direct does not always rest content with what a poet's words can achieve. More's the pity."
Read more
"I thought they were amazing. All really crazy, off-kilter, not-entirely-completely-successful, but thoroughly mesmerizing and so worthwhile. Directed and designed with incredible imagination...It's hard to imagine these three landmark plays ever being performed together again in such a first-rate production, so I do highly recommend you get yourself over to the Signature Theatre."
Read more
"With its eerie music, strobe lights, and in-unison chanting, 'Funnyhouse of a Negro' is clearly a wacky show. If you peel back the layers however, it’s meant to show the symbolism between white power and black…The message here is an interesting one, but it would have been more easily understood if there had been a resolution to the conflict. The ending did not help. It is just a cliffhanger, and sadly the audience never really gets a clear cut answer on what actually happened."
Read more