The Jungle NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (188)
See it if you can.
Don't see it if you can’t handle the seating. Read more
See it if You want to see a brilliant and important immersive play that takes place in a refugee/migrant camp in France. I was completely absorbed.
Don't see it if You can’t sit for three hours, particularly on a bench without a back. Look for available chairs when you purchase your tickets.
See it if you like unique grab-you-by-the-throat-and-shake-you-to-your-core theatrical experiences that are energetic, intense, smart and memorable.
Don't see it if you have a bad back. Most seating is on padded benches with no back support for 3 hours, but it's a small inconvenience to pay for great art Read more
See it if you want to feel totally immersed and forget that you are viewing a play -- WOW, the Jungle is intense and amazing.
Don't see it if you can't sit for 3 hours on a bench, pillow, or somewhat uncomfortable seats. Prepare to be upset in this nontraditional production. Read more
See it if you want to experience an innovatively staged, thought-provoking play that gives you a real sense of what it was like in a refuge camp.
Don't see it if you don't want to sit in uncomfortable seats for a fairly long show - the show is worth the discomfort, but the seating isn't the best.
See it if you are hungry for challenging and reality-based theatre.
Don't see it if you’re xenophobic.
See it if you want a unique, deeply affecting experience featuring remarkable performances, immersive staging, and harrowing subject matter
Don't see it if you're looking to sit back, relax, and enjoy some light escapism; you'll struggle with a loud, chaotic, non-traditional setting Read more
See it if you want to see fresh, well-written immersive(ish) theater that moves you and somehow manages not to be preachy despite a v political topic.
Don't see it if you're easily triggered by descriptions of fairly graphic violence. But...I'm generally very sensitive and it was hard--but still worth it.
Critic Reviews (24)
“Go see it—because not only is it extremely important to witness, it is completely and utterly entertaining, as great theater should be.”
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CRITIC'S PICK! "The show summons, with uncanny clarity, the vigorous chaos from which a provisional order gradually emerges...There is tension, of course, and apprehension and suspicion...But the clashes are often comic, and the pure energy of actors creating a world of people creating a world of their own is exhilarating...A work of absorbing theater, which uses the immediacy of that art to conjure the paradoxes and confusions of a world dealing with an unprecedented flux of uprooted lives."
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"If you’re looking for effortless exposition or delicate characterization, this nearly three-hour immersive play won’t afford it. It’s not artful as a piece of drama; rather, it’s a deliberate cacophony of voices...The piece is impressive, and it has moments of virtuosity, especially in the music...But when the gorgeously openhearted gesture of making theater for refugees turns into a show for the wealthy about refugees, part of its moral beauty slips away."
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"It's a stunning feat of design, but it's not the only aspect that makes this marvelously realized production...essential viewing...The work packs a powerful punch in the current political era...The play's writing sometimes lacks cohesion and feels manipulative, making it not always as artful as the production. But 'The Jungle' nonetheless registers with a throbbing authenticity only amplified by the superb performances of the large, multinational ensemble and the virtuosic immersive staging."
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"In spite of exquisite design and a substantial production, the play itself is shaky...Despite extreme efforts at verisimilitude, a noble purpose, and a vitally important subject, the storytelling comes across as heavy-handed...substituting atmosphere for dramaturgy...It’s devastating to spend all this time in a room with these characters and in this place, and emerge knowing less than when we went in. Disillusion may be part of the point, but it also feels like a lost opportunity."
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"Anyone who is capable of a scintilla of human decency could not help but be moved by the human face this intense and powerfully immersive play puts on people fleeing oppression in their homelands...To be sure, the two-hour, 45-minute production has its excesses...The drama’s success in imbuing with personality those trapped in the camp...may be its most important achievement. No weak link exists in the 18-member ensemble, and some actors offer particularly vivid accounts."
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“An emotionally jarring production that has been transplanted from London's Young Vic...vibrates with truth through every flattering and unflattering circumstance surrounding a momentary epicenter of Europe's refugee crisis. Led by directors Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, the piece is more an experience than a play, physically and psychologically rebuilding a slice of life to ultra-realistic effect in the middle of Dumbo, Brooklyn."
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"Even if you've read or heard a lot about the refugees and some of the shocking things they've been through, nothing will prepare you for being in the thick of it as the characters pour their hearts out right in front of you. This is thanks to some stellar work from the entire company...There's no mistaking that this is one of the most vital pieces of theatre ever to grace the stage, at once dispiriting and inspiring - the human capacity for hope in adversity is quite an extraordinary thing."
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