The Light Years NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (161)
See it if You like lights and learning about interesting but not well-known historical figures.
Don't see it if You want your theater to be engaging and cathartic.
See it if You want to see interesting characters in a historically acurate setting. Lighting is intriguing.
Don't see it if You want significant dramatic action.
See it if See if you are interested in history and family relationships. Beautifully staged .
Don't see it if If you do not like detailed , overly long and somewhat confusing plays.
See it if you are interested in Worlds Fairs, like shows that jump back and forth in time, want to see some good acting.
Don't see it if you are looking for a show with a message--the ending doesn't have a point. Don't see it if you are easily bored. Ultimately disappointing.
See it if you like well done theater about the american experience
Don't see it if you need special effects and huge dramatic moments to move the story along
See it if you'd like an off-beat drama, with comedy and romance, set against the background of science and history.
Don't see it if you have limited patience.
See it if unconventional, conceptual
Don't see it if interesting concept that does not live up to its full potential
See it if you appreciate history and want a newer story and are easily impressed by visual design.
Don't see it if you can't sit for long, as it's one act and almost 2 hours.
Critic Reviews (31)
“Time intertwines these two couples together as their lives pass back and forth in a romantic, yet magical way…The cast is award-winning with Ms. Cash superbly inhabiting both roles…Bos and Thureen have a way with dialogue, but not with endings. We see and learn so much, and are rapt the whole time, but it is not the words that impress us in the end, but the spectacular lights..Sadly what started out with a bang, leaves us empty and unfulfilled in the end.”
Read more
"The alternation of scenes between the two time periods is not really confusing, but produces a repeated loss of focus. Just as the aspirations of almost everyone in the play are not achieved, neither are the aspirations of the play’s creators. Despite the fine acting, impressive set design by Laura Jellinek, great period costumes by Michael Krass and an amazing lighting design by Russell H. Champa, the play fizzles rather than sizzles."
Read more
“A charming if slightly belabored play…Utter chaos, developed and directed with a genuine thrill of what-will-happen-next by Oliver Butler, unfolds...‘The Light Years’ is best in when it is playing with the world of light, and a little more plodding when it trades in conventional domestic drama...But the play is bound and threaded by a belief in creativity and wonder; a wide-eyed pleasure in all that we don’t know, and then bamboozle ourselves trying to invent.”
Read more
“A stitched together creation with each part somehow shakily competent but not quite satisfying…Despite a game cast and some solid technical work, neither section of ‘The Light Years’ holds any interest on their own. And cutting back and forth simply underlines that lack of innate drama (or comedy, as the case may be). The technical elements are solid though the play itself can’t quite inspire greatness…The cast does what it can with very thin material.”
Read more
“Bos and Thureen’s script too often gets bogged down by didacticism, as if all the keen bits of historical lore they uncovered in their research had to be included. Unfortunately, it doesn’t substitute for dramatic conflict, and the struggles on both sides of the 40-year gap don’t really seize and hold one’s attention the way the visuals do. The actors perform well…But one wishes there were a more compelling reason to spend time with these characters than living history.”
Read more
“‘The Light Years’ tosses off lots and lots of ideas. Unfortunately, it omits the glue that might help the audience put them together…The play, which uses a moving scroll at the side of the stage—MacKaye’s invention—to provide added information, is, I’d guess, a cautionary but hopeful tale about human progress, the eternal, love, life, death and things I’m sure I missed. It’s certainly not uninteresting, but it’s extremely frustrating in its lack of connective tissue.”
Read more
"[I]t is the script by Ms. Bos and Mr. Thureen that makes 'The Light Years' one the best new plays in quite some time."
Read more
“The two intercut stories seem to fade in and out, rather than gaining momentum or strength from each other. Laden with explanations of historical tidbits that are hard to care about, both stories also contain glitchy, arbitrary turns that keep distancing the characters from us...Full of visual beauty, intelligent writing and fine acting, 'The Light Years' nonetheless seems to orbit farther away from our grasp with each new scene.”
Read more