The Crusade of Connor Stephens NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Excruciatingly sincere, Moss’s melodrama about intolerance is all bleeding heart. That leaves no room for anything else in 'The Crusade of Connor Stephens,' an overwrought tale of two gay Texas men whose lives are shattered by an act of gun violence sparked by hateful religious rhetoric...In midtown Manhattan, it feels like preaching to the choir, and the sermon is rarely inspiring...The actors strive valiantly to enliven the lugubrious material."
Read more

"Disappointingly, all we get is a tear-stained melodrama of the most obvious variety...Moss's script is perfectly calibrated to stoke our righteous gay fury, to the point that it often strains credulity...The cast impressively turns on the waterworks for this schlock. It's hard not to feel something in such close proximity to pain...Moss has not written about real people...We know who to cheer and who to jeer, making 'The Crusade of Connor Stephens' not much more than a secular morality play."
Read more

"Dewey Moss, the author and director, keeps arranging and rearranging the characters in a series of artificial-looking stage pictures when not dispatching the minor characters offstage on a series of lame pretexts, so those remaining can take part in yet another turgid confrontation...The result is a kind of Southern-fried Ibsen, with everyone hurling accusations at everyone else...The acting is of the clenched-jaw variety, with bursts of rage and floods of tears flowing as needed."
Read more

"Because 'The Crusade of Connor Stephens' is designed to be so entirely moving, it fails as a piece of construction—in between the histrionics, the play never lifts off the ground...The text of 'The Crusade of Connor Stephens' doesn't inform the performance; every actor has so much charged emotion that there's no room for subtlety...As much as I didn’t enjoy this particular play, I realize that 'The Crusade of Connor Stephens' is not meant for me."
Read more

"A devastating, heartbreaking and timely piece...This is a full two hours containing the kind of plot revelations and family secrets that make us decide how we want to be remembered as a country...Mr. Moss’s direction keeps the story moving with simple, effective staging. His writing allows us to examine both sides of every issue...It’s gorgeous, devastating stuff, folks. Run, save yourselves, do not miss 'The Crusade of Connor Stephens.'"
Read more

“Dewey Moss directs his engaging play with the care of a playwright and – after creating some distance between himself and his work – he will surely quicken the pace of the action to more exactly match the emotional strength of this important play. The intermission seems unnecessary and serves to break the action and affect the energy of the performances in the second act. ‘The Crusade of Connor Stephens’ could not be more relevant in the current climate.”
Read more

“It's asking too much for us to accept that an otherwise normal boy would be so swayed by such a comment that he'd shoot, not Junior but his child, and then kill himself, especially as absolutely nothing is done to explain Connor's mental state…Some left the theatre wiping their eyes, but the only emotion I felt was pity for the actors unable to form a cohesive ensemble in this well-intentioned but poorly staged, lugubriously paced, dully acted, emotionally forced, and awkwardly written drama.”
Read more

"A play that comes roaring out the gate like a bull let loose from its corral...Even though Mr. Moss proffers some hope for humane redemption, such redemption is couched realistically in small amounts, with no phony reconciliation to wrap things up on a cheery note...'The Crusade of Connor Stephens' is a bit of a sledgehammer as a play, but it is equally a cri-de-coeur by the playwright, Dewey Moss, who also directs the fine company."
Read more

"While the intensity of Moss’s theme sometimes crosses the line into melodrama and histrionics, the impassioned beliefs contained in the story are not unfamiliar. A compelling cast of eight displays the characters’ deeply felt emotions...The final family showdown lacks credibility...It seems counter-intuitive that the inflamed characters would wait patiently to be heard...A powerful examination of important issues that plague our society, shining a spotlight on bigotry."
Read more

“A very complex and illuminating family drama about acceptance, loss, religion, and hate…The play cunningly reveals each character’s values and builds to a climax that forces each to take action…However, the current production does not fully realize the potential of the play…Mr. Moss’ direction once again demonstrates that playwrights should let someone else direct their works...This production is still worth seeing for a New York audience."
Read more

"James Kiberd as the patriarch is wonderful...He endows Big Jim with surprising nuance and even sympathy...The positioning of the players at certain points in the play is a master class in stage direction...The ending is a touch too facile; what had been an hour and 45 minutes of carefully layered exposition and a study in familial relationships takes a surprising turn toward sentimentality...This concern notwithstanding, the drama isn’t forced for much of the play."
Read more

“Moss treats all perspectives with equal compassion, and shows that both sides can sometimes be guilty of finger-pointing…A well-cast ensemble embodies these contradictions effectively, but they are somewhat inhibited by the limitations of the production. Moss exhibits good directorial instincts, but the venue itself seems to fighting him…These problems will likely diminish if ‘Crusade’ gets a longer run in a theater the right size and shape. It deserves to.”
Read more