The Convent

See it if Had a great supporting actor. If you want a show about women in a contrived setting.

Don't see it if If you want a well written play. Very poorly written, slow, and banal.

See it if you like scripts that take a risk & productions that do things that only live theater can do.

Don't see it if you are looking for a realistic peek into life among the nuns.

Also Jessica Dickey’s “The Convent,” not a flawless script, is a thrilling experience all the same. The play stomps widely & fearlessly across touchy terrain, doing things only live theater can. Over a weeklong retreat it follows a small cohort of women as, guided by a Mother, they channel medieval women mystics in an effort to realize their contemporary selves more fully. The script can get a bit schematic as prayer sessions neatly dredge up facts of the characters’ lives in turn. But what the women say is often smart, funny, insightful & touching. And the vibrant staging, including twirling by the full battalion of vital women in long skirts, blows away any structural cobwebs. The finale, in which a pair of actors go so all-out that I feared for their physical well-being (& vocal cords), felt like the perfect, well-earned release after the journeys the women have been through. (A few decades since I first saw her onstage, Wendy vanden Heuvel remains a fully galvanic performer.)... Read more Read less

See it if you're interested in a pretty incisive look at what it really means to discover yourself, and what it really costs.

Don't see it if you don't want theater that challenges you.

See it if inventive set, some powerful acting, interesting feminist exploration of women's sex & relationship-based problems

Don't see it if cliche-ridden complaints about marriage, children, sex, god, etc.; 30 mins too long; too many strident angsty declarations

See it if a magnificent set and excellent direction is enough for an interesting evening.

Don't see it if you want plot twists that are surprises. Everything seems to be telegraphed before it happens.

See it if you want to see a play with all female actors focused on issues relevant to women. But very contrived situation. Not at all realistic.

Don't see it if I would not really recommend this play. It was not that interesting. Actors all did a good job though.

Also Sort of like if the girls from The Wolves (a play I loved) grew up and went to a convent and continued their conversation. However, that play was something special and this didn't reach those heights.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to see a great actress with a bright future brittany anikka shine in a nice supporting role

Don't see it if You are hoping to see a play with a plot that makes sense. Also if you are bothered by over acting and a set that does not make sense

Also I don’t recommend anyone seeing the show but if you absolutely must see this when you first come into the theater you have a choice of making a first left or going a little bit further and making your second left for seating. You want to make your first left and sit on the side of the theater that has three rows not the side with two rows. I get angry a lot when I watch theater but this show made me really upset and really angry. The stage was very long so when actors were speaking to each other you had to turn your head multiple times like you were watching a tennis match. I didn’t think there was anything creative or interesting about this at all. I thought the character Patty was l obnoxious . I don’t think we were supposed to hate her but I hated her character so bad and I thought the actress who played the part was way over the top. There were seven characters in the show and none of them were explored properly.... Read more Read less

See it if You like feminist stories and unusual mistical journeys. Over the top acting.

Don't see it if You do not enjoy in your face conflicts or are bothered by mistical or religious storylines.

See it if You want a philosophical take on womanhood and getting what you want.

Don't see it if You like action (very little happens and a lot is said). You want a fully-baked script (it feels like some edits would help).

See it if You are interested in spirituality and female mysticism.

Don't see it if You don’t like female-centered plays. You want more action than dialogue.

Also This was a fascinating and beautifully staged piece. It isn’t perfect but it was captivating.

The acting was superb, though a few places it was over the top.

I was intrigued by the women and their stories. It alternated between funny and serious perfectly.

I can’t say enough about how good the staging was. Just stellar.

Some of it was predictable and I really would have liked to have had more focus on one of the characters who was more minor. But overall very recommended.... Read more Read less

See it if you want to experience raw, visceral performances. The characters are predictable in some ways, but are portrayed with openness and truth.

Don't see it if you want to see something truly inventive. Some of the big moments are rather predictable, but there is still beauty in the telling of it.

Also The set is gorgeous. As soon as I walked into the space, I felt at home in it. They use the playing space well, and it is suitably repurposed for a location change at the end. I didn't find any moments in the play to be particularly unexpected or unpredictable, but the performances bring such warmth, depth, and sincerity to these women that I was able to get past that. Glad I was able to catch this before it closes.... Read more Read less

See it if you’d root for (mostly) sympathetic women to achieve fulfillment at a convent, an ironic setting for this spiritual/quasi-religious retreat.

Don't see it if Don’t see it if you’re skeptical of EST and all the other spiritual/quasi-religious retreats that people pay a lot of money to go to.

Also The play’s thesis is presented, apparently without irony, as an axiom: Women must love themselves before they can love anyone or anything else. Are we to take it seriously? Apparently. No one challenges the assertion; no one asks how you live according to the axiom, which might not be that easy & whose consequences might not be desirable; no one argues against what one might see as a formula for narcissism or egocentrism. Whom do we know who loves himself before everything else? But then, our president is not a woman.

The axiom is communicated throughout the play via the metaphor of a castle & expressed explicitly by a homeless woman at the end. Has she lived her life according to the axiom, yet ended up homeless, or is the axiom knowledge she learned from having lived homeless?

There are interesting mini-dramas: mother-daughter, mother-with-herself, lesbian attractions-but this being an ensemble play, like most such plays, none of these dramas receives a satisfying examination.... Read more Read less

See it if you love feminist work and historical feminist exploration. The actors are incredible, especially Brittany Liu. Script is funny at times.

Don't see it if you don't like half-baked scripts. I felt the directing was weak, based on how hard I saw the cast working. There were moments of beauty.

Also It was just an okay show. The script didn't quite accomplish what I think Jessica Dickey wanted to accomplish. I was certainly invested in some characters, but I could honestly care less about the two main characters. The family reveal wasn't so much a reveal. I didn't feel like some of the characters actually got an ending, so it just fell a little flat for me.... Read more Read less

See it if you want to see a beautiful and fascinating play about a world of secrets and devotion. The play takes bold moves and risks, worth seeing.

Don't see it if you want to see a play fully formed that has a neat ending. There are compelling performances and the set is gorgeous.

See it if You question the way you’re leading your life, if you want to see an engaging show about the freedom and choices women make in their lives

Don't see it if You aren’t looking to question how you lead your own life after you leave the theatre.

See it if You are a feminist and you want an insight on the kinds of things that are hot button topics in womens lives today.

Don't see it if You want a fast-paced and plot-heavy drama. This moves slowly and is very much about the characters' backstories

See it if You want to see some fine performances and stunning visuals as part of the scenery. The set was wonderful!

Don't see it if You are looking for a strong script. The play was wildly uneven and vacillated between brilliance and histrionics.

See it if You like earnest feminist theatre. A soupçon of irony would have helped. Interesting ideas here but not fully realized. A bit too schematic.

Don't see it if Maybe a rewrite short of being ready. It's a good looking production, mostly well-acted.

Also Worth a look for some of the performances, especially a superb Brittany Anikka Liu as Tina and a strong Lisa Ramirez as Wilma, with all credit to the playwright for creating these interesting characters I wanted to see more of. A relationship "reveal" was not all that surprising.... Read more Read less

See it if you want more feminism on stage, to grapple with motherhood in the 21st century, to ponder what's holding you back in your own life

Don't see it if you don't want to see an all-female cast uncomfortably staged by a male director, or want a true ensemble cast full of dynamic characters

See it if You want to see a few solid performances (half the cast) and impressive production values for a play of this middling quality.

Don't see it if You would prefer to see a play instead of feeling like a voyeur at a paint-by-numbers womyn's consciousness-raising therapy session.

Also Sadly, once the cast start passing the talking stick around, that's basically it for the 100-minute duration. For a play that pretends to explore the contemporary feminine religious experience there is precious little that scratches the surface. The play might as well be set at a girls' sleep-away camp for all the giggly talk about lesbian crushes, the silliness of penises and the singing of Madonna hits as if they are actual prayers (a bit that doesn't work the first time, but then is resurrected for a second unfunny and unsurprising attempt). The trouble is that the all-female cast spend so much time patiently giving each other opportunities for self-indulgent soul-baring monologues about their pasts (wearing high heels or sitting in the tub with Mommy), that there is very little stage time left for much to occur in the present, where we are all sitting. The events that actually do occur are either juvenile explosions of repressed romantic feelings or a soap opera plot twist. Amen.... Read more Read less

See it if You want to support female creatives - the actors did great work. Still a Jessica Dickey fan, though this was a miss for me!

Don't see it if You want to be saddened by hopeless brokenness. As a young woman, I was not empowered by this play, though it was dressed up to do so.

Also To be fair, I discovered I am not the right audience for the message of this story. The motivation of Mother Abbess was at its core, a selfish one. She’s left her daughter for an unexplainable reason and is haunted by her. She sets up a Convent to facilitate other women’s self discovery. Sam Soule delivers a heart rending performance - especially when begging for this mother’s love or even a conversation. Her mother’s response - a cool let me go, and choose your own life. When scraping for a takeaway from this play, the message was choose your life, choose you, choose your inner god, dethrone everything else. You are sovereign. The characters leave smiling somehow at the end (even the rejected daughter 10 minutes ago), and I can’t help but feel they’ll all return to the convent for a reboot of shallow assurances they found there. We all want to be loved, to belong, to be seen, to be understood. But the more we make gods of ourselves, the more we are alone, and ready to cut others out.... Read more Read less

See it if Wanted to love this more, there is lots of lovely theatre magic happening here, short and poignant, some beautiful feminist themes, images

Don't see it if Not into a play about spirituality, ensemble driven plays, it doesn’t seem quite finished, big ideas not always well executed in the writing

See it if If you want to take a deep trip into yourself and laugh and cry listening to the wonderful performers!

Don't see it if If you want to miss out ! Great directing great writing great acting!!!!

See it if You're sick of "you, me, our apartment, and our problems" plays, you love strong female performances and dynamic staging

Don't see it if You LOVE "you, me, our apartment, and our problems plays," because this is NOT that

Also Almost all the performances are on point, the directing is marvelous, and it's probably the best produced Rattlestick production I've ever seen. The writing falls short here and there, but I also saw the show in previews.... Read more Read less

See it if Ur interested in a somewhat cliched exploration of spirituality & feminism, I guess? I'm not totally sure what the goals were here...

Don't see it if It's not something I will think about for long. But I was engaged while I was watching it.

Also I loved the design of the show. There were some very obvious plot twists and I think the audience was ahead of the play at times but there are some good moments here.... Read more Read less