The Oregon Trail NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (56)
See it if You like solid scripts and strong performances. You can relate to feeling aimless as a young adult. You played Oregon Trail as a kid.
Don't see it if You're looking for nothing but comedy. The show has some very funny moments, but also some lovely and poignant ones.
See it if you like very human accurate angst - amusing and clever and so funny.
Don't see it if you like everything linear - although still very easy to follow.
See it if You liked the Oregon Trail game or coming of age stories with strong female characters.
Don't see it if You don't enjoy thought provoking plays with existential themes.
See it if you appreciate contemporary stories of young people struggling in life but trying to forge ahead, with humor and heart.
Don't see it if you have no connection to the old computer game, in which case some of the references might fly past you.
See it if You want to laugh. You want to go on a journey with a young lady as she is coming of age and the the trials that life brings.
Don't see it if You are not interested in the journey of life that a young lady experiences. You don't want to laugh. You don't like non linear plays Read more
See it if you might enjoy a well-acted, original modern coming-of-age play about a depressed teenage girl who learns how to cope.
Don't see it if you don't like non-linear story lines that go back and forth in time about sensitive female characters! Read more
See it if You're interested in a teenage girl's struggles with social anxiety and depression. Pairs well in subject matter with DEAR EVAN HANSEN.
Don't see it if You're not interested in plays examining mental health. You have no familiarity with playing THE OREGON TRAIL video game.
See it if you are a 90s kid who wants to reminisce and don't mind some suburban angst.
Don't see it if the story of a privilege white surbanite trying to find herself while struggling with mental illness will make you angry.
Critic Reviews (6)
"A feisty, formally inventive comedy...Ms. Brunstetter has scripted earlier plays...'The Oregon Trail' is a great improvement, particularly in its nifty first half-hour. In Ms. Vaynberg’s expressive hands, contemporary Jane’s sly humor and cringing embarrassment feel wonderfully real and raw, horrible and funny...The play makes a forward leap to Jane’s thwarted adulthood and becomes a more formulaic piece...The language in the 1840s scenes starts to irk, as do the sorrows of present-day Jane."
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“A sour, low-stakes comedy…Beyond scratching a specific nostalgic itch, the play offers few rewards…Jane's not really functioning, yet throughout the show's 90 minutes of self-destruction and indulgent passivity, neither she nor her doctor sister brings up therapy or medication. Whether Brunstetter is making a point about generational malaise or actual illness, she's spent too little time speculating on a cure.”
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"The subject is heady, and for a good chunk of the play, 'The Oregon Trail' delivers both a nuanced portrait of depression and a gently humanized vision of a game where, for the most part, the main goal was to kill weary travelers from typhoid...Yet 'The Oregon Trail' also never feels as fully fleshed out as it should be, with the sequences in the 1800s particularly shortchanged toward the end. Director Geordie Broadwater has a strong vision, though."
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"Depression is not an easy state to dramatize, and, in any case, Jane comes off as a pill—whiny, narcissistic, a perpetual victim...The fact remains that Jane's depression is presented without any insight and we are led to believe that her sufferings are equal to those of Then Jane, a notion that would be laughable if it weren't so grating...Brunstetter is a talent to watch, but this 'Oregon Trail,' I'm afraid, leads to a dramatic dead end."
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"There's much that's good about 'The Oregon Trail.' Broadwater's staging is incisive, funny, and quick-moving. The physical production...is spot-on for both eras. And with the exception of Arturo...the acting is well pitched with the writing. Still, Brunstetter's writing and conceptualization could be sharper, and, as witty as the references to it are, the game is more of a diversionary tactic than a fully integrated storytelling mechanism."
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"Brunstetter explores how depression is carried in these women’s bodies and how they articulate that sorrow in their respective eras. Their shared despondence resonates at times, though in this production, the 1800’s segments never feel as sharply drawn as the contemporary scenes...When the play clicks it's engaging, but that fascination can ebb and flow, and the themes tend to circle the wagon without gaining depth. But there is a sincerity and warmth to these young women."
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