“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.”
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"‘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."
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"'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."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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."
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“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.”
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