See it if You want to see Hester Prinn in a dystopian future where they speak a language that only women understand so translations are projected over
Don't see it if the stage so you can read them for THREE HOURS...oh and did I mention...it’s a musical...sort of...I’m sorry...ugh! Such fine talent...WHY??
See it if Remarkable blend of serious drama, comic relief, and musicality. As with "In the Blood", the protagonist is an outcast, trampled by class.
Don't see it if You can't shift between the serious, comic and musical elements. It's a brilliant but odd mix. Read more
See it if you understand Parks' aesthetic & want to see her attempt to repurpose The Scarlet Letter in a Brechtian style; you're a Christine Lahti fan
Don't see it if like me, you are baffled by Suzan-Lori Parks fandom and her heavy-handed and absurd (and not in a good way) storytelling.
See it if you're a Parks fan, admire the excellent Christine Lahti, want to see Elizabeth Stanley push herself, enjoy cast breaking into bitter songs
Don't see it if having an abortionist as a main character would bother you, not a fan of Oedipal like coincidence or of Brecht-Weill style presentation
See it if Dark, fatalistic early SLP work with a Brechtian spin. Bonney's top-notch direction leavens unrelenting bleakness with moments of hope
Don't see it if Brechtian didactics & uncompromising script (with brutal subject matter/misogynistic themes) may be fatiguing. Outstanding ensemble, though
See it if story of vengeance, power, use of sex to various ends brilliantly captured in medieval world; multitalented cast plays and sings new music
Don't see it if this is brutal, but like Game of Thrones you can't avert your eyes from the carnage; starts slowly but gains momentum 2 bloody ending Read more
See it if You enjoy new forms of drama that experiment with different styles, or if you like work similar to that of Brecht.
Don't see it if You dislike tense, bloody plays or dystopian dramas.
See it if you want to watch a terrific cast in difficult roles - this is a dark, dangerous, brutal, class structured society.
Don't see it if Park's has a way with words, not with music-didn't work for me. Some audience left at intermission. Don't leave, 2nd act much better.
"A dark, didactic entertainment deliberately in the mode of Bertolt Brecht...This latest incarnation is light on its feet–quick, sharp and perfectly paradoxical. Barring a few clunking instances of cartoonish satire, Ms. Bonney’s production is as harrowing as it is witty...The cast brings humanizing shades of pain, greed and longing to symbolic figures, without ever tearing the play’s somber folk-tale fabric. And the songs strike a resonant balance between poetry and proclamation."
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"An expressionistic and politically charged exploration of class, family and violence, studded with jarring bursts of humor and song...Involved are bounty hunters, Hester’s prostitute BFF, a lovestruck butcher, an escaped convict and an invented language...That may sound like a lot—and it is. But although director Bonney struggles to establish a cohesive tone, 'Fucking A’s' alternations between pain and entertainment are never boring...The play leaves an indelible mark."
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"Bonney and her actors handle the blunt, clipped rhythms of the text with confidence...A fiery, raw-throated shout in the face of hypocrisy, privilege, and injustice...It reaches across genres and performance styles—musical, Jacobean revenge play, Brechtian epic theater—drawing on the gifts of a multitalented ensemble to touch something frighteningly prescient about a world twisted by inequity and disenfranchisement."
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"'A' never manages to transcend its derivative, ersatz feel. Instead the work comes across like the thesis playwriting project of a zealous grad student as it dutifully recycles theatrical tropes...While the play traffics in important, urgent themes, its affectations prove its undoing...The scripts’ gimmicks, however, are not an obstacle for the performers, who tear into their schematic roles with energy and conviction...Bonney infuses the proceedings with intense theatricality."
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"More than 150 years after Hawthorne wrote 'The Scarlet Letter: A Romance'—the same words, the same symbols, the same damning letter can still make women weep with shame and rage...Director Jo Bonney runs with the play’s sense of menace...It’s a savage world where only the strong survive. Christine Lahti’s fiercely drawn Hester is a survivor, but so consumed with equally balanced passions of love and hate you can’t tear your eyes away from her."
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"Packed with ominous tones, intense emotions, freewheeling theatricality, social criticism and an inevitable sense of tragedy...Bonney gives the production an electrifying edge, with the broad performances of the supporting players played against the protagonists’ grim circumstances...Each production is an outstanding staging of a bold, difficult and provocative work. When viewed together, 'The Red Letter Plays' proves to be one of the most interesting and rewarding theater events of the fall."
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“In director Jo Bonney's chilling Signature Theatre production, Parks’ sardonically abstract portrait of human cruelty may remind playgoers of another writer, Bertolt Brecht...Parks peppers the play with such quick musical moments. Unlike the melodic and lyrically complex interludes Brecht wrote with Kurt Weill in works such as 'The Threepenny Opera,' Parks' songs are more about being absurdist elevations of reality."
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"An act of theatrical ventriloquism, an approach that severely undermines its deadly serious subject matter...For some mysterious reason, Parks has allowed herself to be possessed by the spirit of Bertolt Brecht...Jo Bonney's direction has its effective moments...But 'F---ing A' is all over the place, its mordant points too often obscured by the playwright's try-anything approach. It's easy to imagine that this play will ultimately go down as a minor entry in Parks' catalogue of works."
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Alex Lawther stars in director Robert Icke's acclaimed production of Shakespeare's tragedy.