"What I’d hoped for was refreshment. What I left with was a thirst for a more memorable and neatly composed offering...The production is too heterogeneous and muddled to rally around one clear theme or concept...Though well-intentioned, it’s hard to find the connective tissue here or, as Nottage says, the organizing principle. Whatever 'The Watering Hole' means to express, it’s drowned in this sea of artists."
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"In this haphazard array, there’s some lovely work, but unfortunately, some of it devolves past preciousness and into kindercore. Parts of the Signature look as though they’ve been turned over to a primary school. In one corridor, an artist has literally thumbtacked random water-related poems to a corkboard — I kept looking around for those construction paper Thanksgiving turkeys we all made by tracing our hands."
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"It turns out that 'The Watering Hole' not only refreshed me, but got me thinking about what theater is, or can be...There are no live actors, but there are many recorded voices and videos; audiences are small; masks are worn — but at least it gets us somewhere, into a gathering place with others who have come to share an experience."
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"Designed to give pandemic-weary audiences a psychological oasis and a spiritual tune-up, it has its striking moments...But these are not unalloyed pleasures: 'Freequency' is dominated by a run-on monologue, focused on the efficacious properties of creativity, that is so vaporous it all but floats away."
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"Not all of the installations are successful, and this 'Watering Hole' has its fair share of dry spots. Some of the experiences, for instance, push the new-age philosophizing a bit too far...In the wake of a pandemic that has made people wary of congregating and at a time when arts institutions are doubling down on their commitment to inclusiveness, this production demonstrates Signature's efforts to reboot and re-examine its responsibilities to theatre artists and the communities they represent."
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"I venture to say too many of the poetic feelings sought are not sufficiently realized. Too much of the contents are simplistic, clichéd, familiar while sometimes obscured. For instance, there’s a moment when patrons are asked to say their name so that their heart can hear it. Perhaps any individual person’s reaction to the entire enterprise might be extrapolated from that single request."
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"The totality of this event is provocative, playful and stimulating...In the wake of the pandemic and political unrest, The Watering Hole is a welcome and thoughtful communal diversion."
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“The Watering Hole,” an art installation that takes over nearly every nook and cranny of The Pershing Square Signature Center, is meant to be healing and calming…like water....the ten installations through which a masked guide leads us — each short piece riffing on the theme of water or theater or both — start to feel like part of a sacred ritual: Stations of the Muse?... A large group of talented artists have created some arresting lines, some vivid designs. On the whole, though, “The Watering Hole” turned out to be a depressing experience.
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