The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord
Closed 1h 25m
The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord
71

The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord NYC Reviews and Tickets

71%
(139 Ratings)
Positive
63%
Mixed
30%
Negative
7%
Members say
Thought-provoking, Intelligent, Clever, Ambitious, Slow

About the Show

Primary Stages presents the NY premiere of this comedy in which three of history’s most famous men debate everything from religion to literature to marriage.

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Show-Score Member Reviews (139)

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223 Reviews | 45 Followers
75
Absorbing, Entertaining, Great acting, Intelligent, Profound

See it if you want an interesting intellectual discourse; the interplay between the titular characters is both funny and intelligent

Don't see it if you want action, realism, or a true plot

399 Reviews | 205 Followers
75
Entertaining, Great acting, Intelligent, Thought-provoking, Ambitious

See it if Interesting concept, good performances. Asks good questions about moral issues. Attractively and minimally staged

Don't see it if Makes you work a bit. Might not interest those bored by historical figures or the Gospels.

159 Reviews | 20 Followers
74
Ambitious, Confusing, Intense, Profound, Thought-provoking

See it if you want to brush up on your philosophical thought and be utterly at the mercy of the playwright who is 3 steps ahead of you at all times.

Don't see it if you do not enjoy a challenge to your train of thought or would feel better with a musical.

89 Reviews | 10 Followers
72
Interesting, Funny, Ambitious, Overrated

See it if You enjoy watching philosophical ideas colliding with each other

Don't see it if You're annoyed when things aren't as profound as it thinks it is.

85 Reviews | 24 Followers
68
Clever, Confusing, Intelligent, Great writing, Thought-provoking

See it if you want to see great men from history debate religion and the gospel.

Don't see it if you need big staging and action. This is literally three men, a table, and two chairs. Read more

59 Reviews | 28 Followers
68
Ambitious, Funny, Disappointing, Slow, Fatiguing

See it if You like thought puzzling philosophical dramas involving death and religion.

Don't see it if You have a good book to read.

416 Reviews | 66 Followers
68
Disappointing, Pretentious

See it if you want to see a strange discussion of what the Bible should be as three writers of note babble all about it.

Don't see it if you don't like babbly plays that are nearly monologues.

189 Reviews | 21 Followers
60
Tedious

See it if You are given free tickets. It's not really worth paying. The incessant arguing onstage loses the audience quickly.

Don't see it if You don't mind ad nauseum existential arguments. Yawn.

Critic Reviews (18)

CurtainUp
October 1st, 2017

"'Discord' is, when pared downed to its existential essence, nothing more than the title implies...There are laughs aplenty amidst the often stimulating haranguing, especially during the first half...The most highly charged and emotional segments deal with the contradictions in these men's lives and lifestyles that often decry their moral and ethical convictions...The play gets just a tad too dense and less purposefully epigrammatic...A visit with three such egotistical souls has much to offer."
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Front Row Center
October 5th, 2017

"The discussion becomes tedious. It is not banter, though there is laughter. It is not incisive, but not quite obvious either...It’s not thin soup so much as well short of cassoulet. The actors inhabiting the great men have precious little breathing space. The dialogue is dense with reference and the pace is fierce...But when it comes to wrapping it up—the meaning of life, what’s it all about Alfie? Crickets."
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Front Mezz Junkies
October 15th, 2017

“Carter has so much to say apparently, but sadly, takes far too much time getting to the point...Laurence as Jefferson and Sesma as Tolstoy are strong and believable in their characterizations, making us believe they are the souls of these serious men. Boutté, on the other hand, never really resonates as the flamboyant Dickens...Carter doesn’t have as much to say as he and we had hoped in the end...It’s diverting and amusing but leaves us unsatisfied.”
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Theatre Reviews Limited
October 1st, 2017

"'Discord' is a puzzling entity with little to offer other than three fine performers grasping at lines of script as they too easily slipped through their fingers onto the theater floor...The audience learns nothing about these men they did not know before they entered the theatre...If biblical commentary and exegesis by old dead white men sounds interesting, then 'Discord' might be your ticket."
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Theatre's Leiter Side
October 7th, 2017

“This outlandish premise, which might have been the trigger for a 10-minute 'SNL' sketch, is then stretched nine times beyond that boundary, with increasingly diminishing returns not helped by any of the overdone performances…If the playwright were able to raise the temperature to the heat of a Bill Maher political dispute he might have something going; instead, he gives us warmed over philosophical and theological sound bites spouted by personages played without an ounce of honest feeling.”
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The Huffington Post
October 1st, 2017

"These three argue hotly with one another. They’re so contentious that they’re almost immediately alienating to each other as well as the ticket buyers. Worse, their conversation shortly becomes pointless...Late in the 85-minute gabfest, something pithy emerges...So Carter is insisting that—wait for this fresh surprise!—humankind is flawed, but that doesn’t preclude each of us from making important contributions...Under Senior’s steady direction, the actors do well at the incessant volatility."
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Times Square Chronicles
October 2nd, 2017

"Everything about this show is problematic. Boutté’s Dickens is a caricature, while Laurence and Sesma underplay their roles. Ms. Senior’s direction makes this 85-minute play seem like an eternity and Mr. Carter’s play is an intellectual bore. This is definitely discord, but the question is whose?"
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The Wrap
October 1st, 2017

"Carter has used his encyclopedic knowledge of Jefferson, Dickens and Tolstoy’s lives and written works to have his characters beat up on each other with erudite, dizzyingly delightful jabs...Under Kimberly Senior’s astute direction, there’s method in having an American founding father register as a bore...Egomaniacs that they are, the men of 'Discord' force each other to confront the hypocrisy at the core of their lives. It’s here that the symmetry of Carter’s play is thrown off."
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