Terezin NYC Reviews and Tickets

"The tragic story of the people at Terezin is certainly a worthwhile subject, and Tolkien's play has merit. However, it needs further development. The staging is somewhat stylized, which only distanced me from creating an emotional connection with the characters...Least effective is the use of actors playing ghosts at various times throughout the play...For the most part, the actors do a good job with the material given and with their difficult accents."
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“Can any playwright, no matter how talented, adequately dramatize the agony of millions of innocent victims of the Holocaust, or, for that matter, any of history's holocausts that have been visited upon entire populations with mind-boggling frequency? I don't think so, but the grim, unremittingly depressing ‘Terezin,’ written and directed by Nicholas Tolkien (the Jewish great-grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien) makes an honest, if ultimately unsuccessful, stab at it.”
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“What makes Tolkien’s production a mesmerizing work is in how its characters rise above the brutality and sadistic mania of their captors...The ensemble’s work together is just terrific. The themes of Terezin are outstanding…Additional elements that make this production memorable are the stylized and symbolic effects…These directorial nuances and choices by the artistic team elevate this work to a fine artistic symmetry and create a poetic dramatic design.”
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“'Terezin' is a call to remember. I appreciate a work of art that insists we fulfill an ethical responsibility, though the performance unsurprisingly is difficult and heavy…The play is clearly meant to be brutal…Tolkien’s writing finds its full expression in the monologues, which contain an unexpected gravity and poetic imagery. They are performed deftly and with professional commitment by the large cast…The choreography is sparing but clear, at times evocative and consistently impassioned.”
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“Very little rings true…in the writing, staging, or performances. The Nazis…are the sociopathic stereotypes we've seen in countless movies; I wish I'd counted how many times a Luger was whipped out and pointed as a way to settle a dispute. The rambling, suspense-challenged plot, filled with superficial characters and unpersuasive developments, fails to dig deeper than its litany of familiar Nazi cruelties…Act Two, in particular, is a pileup of dramaturgy that's gone off the rails.”
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"Bad commemorative art...The two-act play is a collection of hollow histrionics...Tolkien doesn’t fulfill his obvious good intentions, his shortfall not needing lengthy description here...Tolkien directed, once again proving that very few playwrights are adept at directing their own works...It’s often said that the Holocaust is impossible to dramatize. 'Terezin' will give no one the opportunity to argue otherwise."
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“Tolkien is the author and also the director, and neither of which does he do well. For over two and half hours this overstuffed, confusing mess of a play struggles to find its ground...There are also historical problems with this work. The cast is terribly uneven…Even the directing here is odd…Plays about the Holocaust are important so we never forget, but that doesn’t mean we need to forget artistic integrity.”
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“A shawl is used to simulate playing the violin while we hear the accompanying music. That is one of the most successful touches. But other examples of the approach are strained…Such surrealism is intrusive and unconvincing, even muddling…The ensemble cast excels in getting into the overall mood of the play…However, as sincere as this effort...is, the style of the production sometimes impedes evoking emotions connected to what we see, even though the horrors are forcefully referenced.”
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“Throughout the first act, the production careens between sequences of compelling emotion and awkwardly paced, ineffective scenes. The stylized delivery and dialogue and symbolic imagery, intermittently touching and powerful, are too often overwrought and, at times, confusing. Despite the horrific story, powerful performances, and evocative music and sound, there’s a hollowness to the production, as if it were a puppet show staged for children.”
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"It certainly can be said that Tolkien does not trivialize the Holocaust...However, the thickness of the narrative–blurred further at times by directorial flourishes–does dilute the visceral impact of the depicted terrors of Terezin. Also, there is an uneven quality to some of the portrayals in the 14-person cast...Despite its imperfections, it demonstrates enough passion and talent that would have hopefully made both Nicholas’s Roman Catholic great-grandfather and Redlich proud."
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“Tolkien bites off more than he can chew...Too much time is given over to the family dysfunction of the commandant and his son, which plays more like soap opera than tragedy. The dialogue varies between anachronistic and ham-fisted…All of these issues stem from the core problem of attempting to cram in too much material so that shorthand, indication, and stereotypes are needed to move us from Point A to Point B. There is, however, a good play lying here, waiting to be born."
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“The play is based very much based on reality…As expected, the end is not a happy one, though the playwright brought a butterfly into the moment perhaps to shed light and create hope just as the original poem tried so hard to do. Tolkien incorporates music and dance in the play, and the actors are all passionate and expressive…The set, costumes and lighting are bare and stripped down to tell this haunting, true story.”
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