"'The Christians,' is the first important new play of the young fall season...It has been ingeniously staged by the director, Les Waters...Mr. Hnath is one of the freshest playwriting voices to emerge in the past five years or so. He’s also an adventurous thinker in terms of style and content...'The Christians' is Mr. Hnath’s most penetrating work, but what you take away is the play’s ruminative gravity, and how each character is given an authentic voice and a complexity of feeling."
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"This is a massively well-intentioned play that pits people, each of whom believes that they are acting according to the voice of their God, against one another...Hnath offers only questions that hit home and leaves the answers to us. This is not a new concept – think Greek tragedies here. It is, however, an updated examination focused on a specific corner of our society that rarely gets a balanced treatment."
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"Although superbly staged by Les Waters and the use of microphones serves to both amplify and distance the coiled language, Hnath seems to lose nerve as he goes...There are so few plays that take on big moral questions, and Hnath is a serious writer, so I can still recommend 'The Christians,' but I cannot promise ecstasies of Heaven."
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"In his extraordinary new play 'The Christians' at Playwrights Horizons, Lucas Hnath grapples with dogma itself...In the strange, superb direction by Les Waters, the distancing elements are amped up. The result is a kind of 'public service': an exurban passion play. The surprise is the passion part; through some trick of perspective, and excellent acting, the abstractions enhance rather than cancel the emotion."
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"In 'The Christians', a pastor of a massive megachurch shares an epiphany with his congregation of thousands: Everybody is saved; heroes and Hitler go to heaven...Those are the basics of Lucas Hnath’s intriguing if not exactly illuminating look at irreconcilable differences within faith and family...Hnath doesn’t attempt resolutions. But you can bank on this Playwrights Horizons production to make you think. As a conversation-starter, it’s a little bit of heaven."
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"The problem with the play is that the cleric who sets off the hullabaloo that tears the congregation apart is just as bland as the scenery. To heighten this emotional distance (and spiritual alienation) between the preacher and his flock, all the characters whisper-speak into handheld microphones — even in intimate scenes...But if Pastor Paul is personally insipid (and suitably played so by Andrew Garman), his spiritual crisis is dynamite."
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"It's so rare to see religious beliefs depicted onstage without condescension that Lucas Hnath's new play becomes all the more intriguing...'The Christians' is an ambitious, effort that deserves attention. But even though attention must be paid, the work proves disappointing in its overly stylized presentation and lack of dramatic impact."
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"'The Christians' is a white-knuckled drama about . . . a theological battle. But there are no clear winners or losers in Lucas Hnath’s deeply affecting new play...As heated and heady as the disputes become, Hnath and director Les Waters keep the show absorbing on a very human level. This is a production we can believe in."
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