The Daughter-in-Law NYC Reviews and Tickets

"4/5 stars...Give the Mint Theater Company an uncut gem...and they’ll buff it into something precious: a multifaceted theatrical heirloom to be treasured for years to come...Directed by Martin Platt, who also helmed the company’s 2003 production, 'The Daughter-in-Law' isn’t—to use more Lawrence lingo—a 'bobby-dazzler' of a play. But the Mint has cleaned it up nicely. It wears well."
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"A strange and compelling portrait of a misalliance...The anti-romantic show’s pleasures are dark ones and are sometimes deliberately obscure; its realism depends entirely on the cast’s comfort with the East Midlands dialect, which can be difficult to understand. Here, coached by Amy Stoller (also the production’s dramaturg), the cast sounds marvelous, their pronunciations tarred and sticky as old molasses."
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One rarely thinks of D. H. Lawrence as a playwright, for good reason; compared to his prodigious output of novels and short stories, his theatrical work was minimal and little-noted. The Daughter-in-Law, written in 1913, wasn't produced until 1967. Yet Lawrence knew how to arrange fiery confrontations that leave no one unscathed, and his insights are as unyielding and adamantine as the coal mined in the Northern England town where the play takes place. Martin Platt's production begins on a relatively quiet note but hang on for some real shockers, including at least one moment that sends gasps rippling through the audience.
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"3/5 stars...The production, as opposed to the play, is admirable. The actors handle their chores well...While 'The Daughter-in-Law' was likely provocative when Lawrence filed it away in 1913—or would have been, had anyone seen it—the controversial issues addressed have been visited so many times that they are now the stuff of sitcoms."
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"4/5 stars...With dramaturg and dialectician Amy Stoller’s guidance, the performers all use a heavy East Midlands accent, but Minnie’s language is rather more refined, and an excellent Amy Blackman gives the character a very different physical bearing...Though 'The Daughter-in-Law' resolves on a more comforting (and quaint) note than one might expect, the questions it raises about marriage and family and class are still provocative—and this hearty, stirring production makes them resonate with all the more vigor."
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The Mint Theater Company which gave the first New York production of The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd, Lawrence’s best play and one of the great British tragedies of modern drama, has revived The Daughter-in-Law which it first staged in 2003 in an excellent new production again directed by Martin Platt. While the authentic and thick Midlands dialect (developed with specialist Amy Stoller) may be a problem for some theatergoers, not only does it get easier as the play develops but the local slang is easy enough to figure out. Unlike the other two plays in the trilogy, the engrossing Daughter-in-Law is not usually considered autobiographical (Lawrence had not married Baroness Frieda von Richthofen Weekley at the time he wrote it), but it was written at the time of his very autobiographical Sons and Lovers which has similar themes: mothers and sons, and wives and husbands.
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Gritty, odd, oddly gripping, sometimes subtly comic and often impenetrable… [the Mint production] is uniformly and manifestly well-acted, and effectively designed — but, at the same time, for me at least, a little too authentic… they speak a dialect…that’s hard to decipher
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"Despite the difficult dialect and the play’s weaknesses, such as its momentary lurches into sentimentality, the production succeeds due to uniformly excellent acting and sure-handed direction. That the story is clear is a testament to the actors, who handle the language like native speakers and yet make it comprehensible...Even so, a bit less reverence toward the text, in the form of trimming, would help the 90-minute first act from occasionally dragging."
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