"Slight but spirited...There are several good reasons to see the show (it’s short, it’s sexy, it’s starry, it’s well acted) and others not to (it’s contrived, it’s manipulative and even at 70 minutes, too long for its limited purposes). Your call."
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"Most of the play consists of loud bickering and small-talk filler. This is meant to suggest a morning-after dance of negotiations, but while it’s nice to see LaBute working in a less misanthropic mode than usual, the characters are drawn too sketchily to support it, and the actors have little chemistry... Even as LaBute fills in their history, their present stays flat. The play is a glazy cruller: one big twist with a hole in the middle."
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"As in other LaBute stories, these characters arrive fully formed and ready for full frontal heart to heart combat. Over the course of 80 or so minutes that fly by, LaBute turns up the temperature incrementally. He gives his characters time to listen, parry, act and react. He gives us time to be drawn into the basement of their story – which is where we want to be...And it is totally worth the watch. Bravo."
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"Neil LaBute’s latest disappointing mousetrap...I felt just like Doug for much of the play: So tell me then. Come on. Please. And yet, when LaBute responded to my mute screams, I quickly began to wish he hadn’t. If the setup were monumentally entertaining and the payoff profoundly engrossing, a trick like this might work, but the setup here is barely bearable. The payoff is nonexistent. Or rather, it is trite, a perfunctory wave at carpe diem."
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"LaBute, the master of corrosive misoygny, has become a sweet fool for love. Tentative embraces and pussyfooted retreats underscore the rom-com textures. Then, at the one-hour mark in this 85-minute Second Stage production, reality bites. He’s up to up to his time-tested switcheroos. It also sinks the show."
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"LaBute doesn't develop his provocative premise in particularly interesting fashion. Much of the dialogue about the couple's concern over reactions of their friends and family should they decide to take the relationship further proves banal and repetitive. Still, the playwright's gift for amusing banter is very much on display, garnering more than a few laughs with running gags...A feel-good, happy ending that at least doesn't send us out with a sour taste in our mouths."
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"A bigger issue is how annoying they are...The show, ably directed by Leigh Silverman, hinges on whether Beth and Doug will decide to grow up — and whether they’ll do it together. The only thing for sure is that they’re likely to keep yammering on."
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"The writer who has been called 'America’s misanthrope par excellence' appears to have had a change of heart when it comes to matters of the same organ. 'The Way We Get By' feels like a refreshingly sunnier and more hopeful LaBute, with moments that feel suspiciously like giddy joy."
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