The Wholehearted NYC Reviews and Tickets

"A fast-jabbing fantasy where sweaty physicality rubs up against shape-shifting surreality...Holum gives a clear and lithe performance, and the production design is excellent. But the show as a whole feels skimpy and incomplete, touching too briefly on too many charged elements and allowing too little space for Holum’s winsome humor to break through. For all the kinetic energy of the staging, the story seems stalled...on the verge of action but not taking it just yet."
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"The play provides a chance to marvel at Holum's technical precision, and her ability to move quickly to extraordinary heights of emotion...Thematically, the creators are asking us to meditate on the varieties of self-destruction. But practically, they're asking us to watch a woman swap accents and punch herself out—a staging choice that sometimes sails past tragedy and crashes into the rocky shores of absurdity. It's a fight even Dee can't win."
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"A messy look at one woman's rags-to-riches journey...An odd, jumbled piece interspersed with musical numbers that don't quite fit...The transitions can be clunky and even confusing as Holum moves between personas...Holum has ferocious energy and can bring emotion and humor to the fantastic songs and the performance, but this reviewer overall found the piece to be lacking in cohesion and message."
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"Sometimes the various formats are woven together into a dazzling tour de force...For all its high-tech, cutting-edge flair, the true pleasure of 'The Wholehearted' is of an old-fashioned sort: Holum’s fearless, fierce, vulnerable performance...The script might benefit from more nuance...The play is so eager to show us the irony in Dee’s story, that it overplays its hand at times. But Dee’s tender recollections of Carmen form the beating heart of 'The Wholehearted.'"
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"The most intensive and honest character presentation I have seen in a long time...These two brilliant women obviously work together symbiotically, drawing on over a decade of experience...I am sure 'The Wholehearted' is on its way to win even more awards given the incredible talent of these two most creative people...I hope it returns to Los Angeles again soon to entice even more people into Dee Crosby's tale told with skill and heart by Suli Holum."
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"It is only 65 minutes in length, but co-director and playwright Deborah Stein asks a lot of questions about boxing, domestic abuse and unfulfilled desires. There's a lot to take in during the one-woman show. Yet, she accomplishes her goals with growing intensity...Occasionally, the use of video is excessive...Holum is so compelling to watch that her amorous speeches don't need the extra visuals...A well-crafted and cerebral story. Be prepared for a complicatedly dark character study."
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"One of the most effective aspects of this multimedia-rich show is the way it elucidates the sometimes blurred boundaries between her public and private personas...The two pack a lot into the hourlong, time-hopping play, including country and rockabilly-inflected songs that Holum sings with a soulful passion...There are a lot of thematic threads here that can wind up feeling like loose strings...The play, though, nails the exploitive way Dee has been turned into a commercial product."
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"Although there’s a sag in the middle, the 65-minute, deliberately hectic piece runs at a 'Breaking News' clip. The quick nonlinear jumps are a strength and a weakness, since they gloss over key information, as if the audience already knew the story...'Wholehearted' has the feel of a work-in-progress, but an important one and definitely worth seeing for its myriad means of communication, and for Suli Holum’s boldly honest, quintuple-skilled performance."
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"An intense, ambitious work in need of finessing...As the feisty Dee, working out in the gym, Holum has power and presence to spare. The problem comes when she’s depicting the other characters, Carmen and Charlie—her transitions are not crystal clear, and the narrative suffers...A very busy production—effective in depicting the forces arrayed against its tough yet vulnerable central character, but requiring some tidying up in its moment-to-moment staging."
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