The Thin Place NYC Reviews and Tickets

78%

(117 Reviews)

Positive

83%

Mixed

15%

Negative

Members say

Absorbing, Great acting, Thought-provoking, Slow, Clever

About the Show

Playwright Lucas Hnath returns returns to Playwrights Horizons with a story about a friendship between two women—one who’s recently experienced a strange loss, and another who communicates with the dead.

From the show:

Everyone who ever died is still here, just in a different part of here. Linda can communicate with them. And if you believe, she can make you hear them, too — in the thin place, the fragile boundary between our world and the other one. With acuity and relentless curiosity, Lucas Hnath’s play transforms the theater into an intimate séance, crafting an unnerving testament to the power of the mind, which has a mind of its own.

Member Reviews (117)

Overrated, Slow, Fluffy, Funny

See it if While the show has at certain points some humor, a good story, it is to wordy and slow at points. Needs rework.

Don't see it if Like Hillary and Clinton, hnath throws up a stinker. Show goes to another needless place 60 minutes in.

Thought-provoking, Resonant, Mysterious, Challenging, Absorbing

See it if “You believe what you want to believe.” Other people’s belief systems can feel phony and unsettling. Maybe because our own isn’t solid.

Don't see it if You won’t enjoy a “real” psychic’s relationship with a “fake” psychic as a metaphor for deeper conflict between people’s beliefs & egos. Read more

Slender, Disappointing, Thought-provoking, Enigmatic, Spectral

See it if you're a Hnath completist & will appreciate his novel experimentation with a timeworn premise such as communicating with the "other side".

Don't see it if you expect Hnath's experimentation to reveal anything clear-cut or fresh about faith, the paranormal or the reliability of storytelling. Read more

Thought-provoking, Edgy, Great acting, Ambitious, Absorbing

See it if Hnath's intellectual thriller is rigorously staged, stunningly lit & impressively acted (esp Danson) while embedding itself in your psyche

Don't see it if Slow, dense & elliptical drama takes its time before showing its true colors Patience & a certain credence in the supernatural required

It’s about communicating w the dead but that’s only a pretext to deal w some heavy epistemological issues; interesting philosophy, inconsistent theater

See it if rich in ambiguity; Lucas Hnath raises interesting ?s about what is real/what's not, how manipulation is key 2 effective communication

Don't see it if haphazard; story starts out strong portraying relationship between medium & subject, loses its way w irrelevant characters/plot

Thought-provoking, Resonant, Quirky, Overrated, Edgy

See it if Playwrights is a great place to see theater. We always like to follow the writer..

Don't see it if The DARK scene needs a better sound system. The idea of house lights on for the major part of the show bugs me. ALSO Read more

Thought-provoking, Great acting, Great staging, Quirky, Clever

See it if Between realities, in a sliver, lies a netherworld where the past lives with the pesent. Twist relationship rests on the questioned truth.

Don't see it if Between worlds, in a thin place, rests a very thin plot. Gimmicky accent. Direct address. Cumbersome lighting cues.

Overrated, Slow, Great acting, Disappointing

See it if The Thin Place is where life and death most closely reside; good premise run amuck; bright lights to make us feel exposed/darkness for fear

Don't see it if though well acted the play is very slow & talky; less a ghost story than a search to hold onto what is lost Read more

Critic Reviews (18)

CRITIC’S PICK. "Death Is a Two-Way Door in ‘The Thin Place’: Lucas Hnath’s cunning new ghost story, about a psychic and her client, is a twisty yarn that won’t unravel."
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4/5 Stars. "For most of its 90 or so minutes, Hnath’s perceptive play suggests a cross between David Mamet’s 'The Shawl'...and Wallace Shawn’s 'Aunt Dan and Lemon'...But the final part...plunges us into different waters. We emerge, shaken, with a heightened sense of the darkness around us and of how much of the world we fill in for ourselves."
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"Lucas Hnath’s 'The Thin Place' Is a Horror Drama that You Think You’ll Forget, Then Won’t"
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"The new experimental drama by 'A Doll's House, Part 2' and 'Hillary and Clinton' playwright Lucas Hnath concerns the fateful friendship between a young woman who's recently experienced a loss and a professional medium."
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"The writer of 'A Doll’s House, Part 2' tells a ghost story wrapped in an existential enigma."
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"'The Thin Place' is a welcome return of Hnath the creepy fabulist, the haunted magician who revels in the uncanny and liminal."
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"'The Thin Place' Plays Scary Games With Your Suspension of Disbelief: Lucas Hnath's new play debunks communication with the afterlife…or does it?"
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"Ever since seeing it, I've been going back and forth: 'Is The Thin Place' a serious consideration of the immaterial? Or an expertly designed spookhouse? I can't say. Then again, I'm still thinking about."
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