This Beautiful Future NYC Reviews and Tickets
About the Show
Production Covid-19 Safety ProtocolsShow-Score Member Reviews (85)
See it if you enjoy thought-provoking staging, unusual juxtapositions, young romance amid war, quirky musical observations, Austin Pendleton fan
Don't see it if main WWII plot interrupted by contemporary musical karaoke, tragic sense of doom redeemed by hope, not a fan of naive youthful exuberance
See it if You want to see an intimate, poignant and powerfully acted love story set during the final days of WWII.
Don't see it if The Holocaust is a trigger for you or if you want elaborate sets and staging.
See it if Can appreciate comedic satire- ironic, light-hearted perspective w/in story set in serious historical context like movie, Life is Beautiful.
Don't see it if You'll be confused about flashbacks/forwards of time in different scenes. Dislike comedic satire or making a serious time/Hitler light. Read more
See it if You don't mind a love story between a Nazi and some girl.
Don't see it if Be clear on what's happening on stage. I don't need everything spelled out for me but this left a little too much up to interpretation. Read more
See it if When a hormonal teenager realizes her "love at first sight" is a Nazi who has killed several people in her life... what's a girl to do?
Don't see it if WWII, starring a Nazi, innocent teenage love, karaoked love songs aren't your thing. Read more
See it if you like small stories about human relationships
Don't see it if you're not a fan of "modern" stagings.
See it if You can handle a young Nazi man in a sweet love story. And a very different event going on at the time (an older couple singing).
Don't see it if You can't handle the horrors of WWII and 70 long minutes.
See it if Despite the chemistry between the young leads, this wartime (puppy) love story feels muddled & confused Atmospherics win out over plot
Don't see it if The adult 'chorus' as a back story (?) leaves one puzzled as well despite the talents of Pendleton & Fiordellisi & THAT cloying ending!!
Critic Reviews (17)
"Over its compact 75 minutes, the play by Rita Kalnejais, lands with a modest impact as it pulls off a sly feat. It feels both very familiar and disarmingly fresh."
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“ 'This Beautiful Future,' an ambitious play that doesn’t succeed in balancing its seesawing styles and tones, keeps springing bewildering surprises."
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"Only the most determined will walk away from 'This Beautiful Future' having felt nothing."
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When trouble finally comes for Elodie and Otto, Kalnejais drags it out unconscionably, scrambling the time frame for sledgehammer ironies. The most obvious of these is the finale, depicting a false dawn complete with a live baby chick onstage as a risible symbol of soon-to-be-shattered hopes. The trouble is, we're way ahead of Elodie and Otto; by the time they describe their sad fates in dueling monologues, we have already imagined them.
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"Rather than being lulled into the fictional world, I became hyper aware of my own lost youth...As an added bonus, 'This Beautiful Future' concludes with a coup de théâtre that can crack the shell of the most hardened curmudgeonly New Yorker."
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If you like your W.W. II history unadulterated, you may object to a love story between a French teenage girl and a 16-year-old Nazi soldier even if they are inexperienced and innocent and unaware of what is to come. The fact that they are both hopeful of life in the future in the middle of war and devastation notwithstanding, were people ever this naïve and unworldly? While This Beautiful Future is tastefully presented, it does not deal with the moral issues that the play hints at but refuses to recognize.
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"At a swift eighty minutes, there are scenes of beauty in 'This Beautiful Future'. It’s a shame that some of them are circumvented by some misguided detours along the way."
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"I left This Beautiful Future scratching my head. The play has received rave reviews in its several incarnations, yet it left me flat."
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