The Low Road NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (147)
See it if This is one brilliantly conceived production. As hilarious as it is intelligent. An intelligent weaving of economics and great fun!
Don't see it if You hated Tom Jones.
See it if You enjoy fun, parable-eqsue stories about economic theories
Don't see it if You love capitalism or Ayn Rand.
See it if a terrific night in the theatre, an intelligent, brilliantly performed and directed, satisfying play. Highly recommended!! Great night out!
Don't see it if you don't like history, economics, a Candide-like plot, or a satirical look at America when it was founded and America today.
See it if A compelling dramatization of the dangers of capital. There is something Twain-esque about it all. The Public’s mission at its best,
Don't see it if You believe in Ayn Rand.
See it if This is the play I think everybody should see. It is fascinating, intelligent, and extremely relevant.
Don't see it if No reason not to see it.
See it if you like inventive & absorbing theatre. This is The Public at its best.Script is clever, fast paced, fun, relevant, and delightful.
Don't see it if you want a realistic, straightforward play.This takes you on a ride, teaches you a lot without ever preaching. It's a gem.
See it if you loved Hamilton and need more shows set during the colonial era. It's engaging, funny, and completely unique.
Don't see it if you're expecting Hamilton in play form.
See it if you political, historical, yet highly entertaining theater
Don't see it if only the very narrow-minded would not like this
Critic Reviews (29)
"Norris and Greif pull off the not inconsiderable feat of keeping us fully, even breathlessly engaged, without presenting a single character who entirely captures our sympathies...Yet after a cliff-hanging first-act finale, the play seems to lose faith in its audience's capacity for inference...What keeps us from tuning out is the infectious energy of an ensemble that delights in its characters' displays of cupidity and stupidity, and the storybook ingenuity of the production."
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"Sensationally prickly and entertaining new play...In the course of this wide-paneled epic—marvelously assembled by director Michael Greif—Norris aims liberating arrows of skepticism at a diverse range of targets...'The Low Road' enjoys being a play, and its dramatic weaponry is wielded with skill by a first-rate cast of 18...Norris has a heart that doubts whatever it looks on, and its looks go everywhere, even to the audience. In every sense, his play is an embarrassment of riches."
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"Norris's rancid, rollicking picaresque...under the sharp-as-a-hatpin direction of Greif...Its parody of the classic young-man-sets-out-to-make-his-fortune story is smart, well-crafted, very well-acted, darkly funny, and beautifully designed...Also so filled with bitterness and loathing...Leaves you cold when the laughter dies down...An ensemble piece, with all 18 cast members doing fine, focused, often funny work...Both entertaining and disturbingly numbing in its hopelessness."
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"Norris doesn't fully succeed in weaving his expansive theatrical canvas. Although several episodes register dramatically or comedically, the proceedings are more often than not jumbled and confused. The play's themes regarding the rapaciousness of unchecked capitalism feel forced and repetitive...Greif does an excellent job of staging such a complex production...The fine efforts of everyone involved aren't enough to lift 'The Low Road' to the theatrical heights to which it aspires."
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"It's ambitious, smart, impolite, funny, and unwilling to stay in one era when two will do better. On the downside, the 2 1/2-hour work can be overly blunt and unwieldy. A cast's worth of good performances plus atmospheric design work offer compensation for weak spots...Greif excels at guiding complex stories and large casts. Even with his fine work, the story eventually sags. One wishes something would move it along - an invisible hand or judicious pruning, perhaps."
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"Unwieldy and upbeat satire/historical drama/lecture...Michael Greif’s two-and-a-half hour production is a boisterous affair with a large ensemble cast, including lively comedic turns from Harriet Harris and Kevin Chamberlin...One can’t help but compare 'The Low Road' with the Broadway musical 'Candide,' in which Voltaire (also an 18th-century philosopher) narrates the picaresque adventures of a far more likable young man who also clings to a single simple philosophy."
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"Wildly ambitious and endlessly entertaining...Greif and Norris present the first act with Brechtian flair, employing...broad stroke performances, and the kind of narration that rudely interrupts the action to teach us something. Yet just when we think we've figured this shtick out, Norris changes the game, especially during a jaw-dropping entr'acte that is the kind of inventive social critique that isn't so easy to dismiss...None of it would be possible without an immensely talented ensemble."
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"Cleverly devised and wonderfully played...A terrific ensemble of players guided by the talented hand of director Michael Grief...A tale of a young abandoned lad who uses his brains and white male privilege to advance in the emerging nation...'The Low Road' is a sharp enough commentary on the long-lived American dream, without necessitating reminders of any newly-developed nightmares."
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