The Young Man from Atlanta NYC Reviews and Tickets

78%

(248 Reviews)

Positive

84%

Mixed

14%

Negative

Members say

Great acting, Absorbing, Great writing, Dated, Slow

About the Show

Danger waits just underneath the surface in Horton Foote’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of an aging couple still reeling from the death of their only child.

From the show:

Set against the backdrop of a rapidly modernizing 1950s Houston, the Kidders' lives are turned upside down once again when a figure from their son’s past shows up in town. They deny, deflect and deceive in an effort to avoid the danger but can’t dodge the inevitable reckoning. How far will these grieving parents go to avoid the truths this young man from Atlanta might reveal? Director Michael Wilson (The Orphans’ Home Cycle, The Old Friends), the premier interpreter of Foote’s work, returns to Signature to to bring to life this beautiful, heartbreaking play that explores and dissects the American dream while revealing the depths we go to in order to keep ourselves safe.

Member Reviews (248)

Uneven, Slow, Great story, Great acting, Entertaining

See it if Old fashioned play. Well acted and written. Not obvious. Keeps one guessing.

Don't see it if Some characters that lengthen the play but add next to nothing save for the run time.

Disappointing, Great staging, Great acting, Funny

See it if Well acted, well directed play with good lighting. If you like Horton Foote.

Don't see it if The play is inconclusive and leaves you wanting a finality. Play only scratches the surface.

Critic Reviews (14)

CRITIC’S PICK "A Heartbreaker Returns in ‘The Young Man From Atlanta’: The Signature Theater’s compassionate revival of Horton Foote’s 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning play takes a slow route to devastation."
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3/5 Stars: "Even the most fervent Horton Foote fan might be hard-pressed to explain the appeal, much less the Pulitzer Prize, of 'The Young Man From Atlanta.' The playwright was renowned for his delicate, layered storytelling, but this 1995 drama lays it on thick."
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"‘An Unwanted Guest to be Thankful For: Signature Theatre’s new revival of Horton Foote’s work makes clear the play’s surpassing excellence."
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"'The Young Man From Atlanta' and the Old Man From Houston: Signature Theatre revives a Horton Foote play that it premiered 24 years ago."
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"There is no greater Horton Foote authority than Michael Wilson, the director of the current edition, but this time his handling is a little wobbly…The pluses outweigh the minuses, however."
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"The play may not pack the wallop it did twenty-five years ago, but 'The Young Man from Atlanta' offers a potent view of the United States on the cusp of social and political change."
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3/5 Stars "Horton Foote won the Pulitzer Prize for this play, which doesn't stand up especially well in 2019."
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"WANTING AND WONDERING: The folksiness in Horton Foote’s family drama grows tiresome."
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"At times I found Foote's writing to be too opaque in all the things he leaves unsaid… It seems Foote is making a subtle commentary on race too…Though Foote overstuffs the play with too many characters, the cast, directed by Michael Wilson, is excellent."
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"Michael Wilson, who so beautifully directed Horton Foote's 9-play 'The Orphans' Home Cycle' is now resurrecting 'The Young Man from Atlanta' with its sad truth about middle-class American life at the Pershing Square Signature Center."
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Score: 95% "It is 1950 Texas. There is no gay rights movement, no #ME TOO, no women's movement. Lily Dale calls her husband Daddy and blames Eleanor Roosevelt for a sick-out staged by the black maids of Houston, but we love her anyway."
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"The wrong play by Horton Foote to revive -- it's dated, and overrated…I struggle to detect anything in the play that sufficiently separates Foote's attitudes [toward homosexuality] in 1995 from his characters' in 1950."
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"One of the joys - and occasional sorrows -- of Horton Foote's many works is the opportunity to periodically revisit the lives of characters with whom we've become acquainted in the past and discovering what has become of them."
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"Enjoyable as some of it is, the writing is unmistakably old-fashioned, melodramatic, even, dependent on lengthy, over-obvious exposition, and burdened by an unsatisfying, almost perfunctory resolution."
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