"The week’s lineup also had to include the kind of unsalvageable amateurish flop the Fringe is known for. In 'Tribulation: The Musical,' hapless young insurance company employees try to fight off the apocalypse with the help of a slacker Jesus. The end of days feels like the end of theater. Enduring this witless show, you have to wonder about the selection process. It might simply be first come first served."
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"A show with such an outlandish setup needs to be grounded somewhere, if not in its plot then in having its characters behave like actual human beings, or at least something resembling them. That's not what the script offers, though, giving a cast with impressive comedic credentials little to work with. Instead, we're given a lot of cookie-cutter gags without satisfying depth that are aggressively jumped on and rehashed into oblivion."
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"The show has some genuinely funny moments…Not all of the humor succeeds, however…Act one is disjointed, partly because there are a lot of threads to 'Tribulation.' And even though act two manages to tie up every one of these loose threads, it does so in a way that feels unsatisfying...This final battle between kind of good and definitely evil ends so quickly it barely has time to fizzle."
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"This religious satire is a smart comedy that doesn't take itself too seriously...'Tribulation' is brazenly outrageous, unafraid to offend. The story isn't exactly unique or fleshed out, opting for the absurdity of the situation...Molly Miller and Brad Kemp's show is one that works well for comedy outlets. As a full-fledged stage musical? It's a harder sell. But there is potential deep within."
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"Filled with overblown unlikeable stereotypes and predictable jokes, the script and score are long and redundant, incessantly peppered with puerile profanity and juvenile talk about sex acts and body parts. While the heavy-handed humor and blatant direction by Tyler Samples might work as a short sketch in an improv comedy club, it gets old in a full-length two-act musical."
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"Writer Molly Miller knows when to duck away from expectations and when to lean into them...Characters that would come off as one-note in another show are developed into three-dimensional human beings…See it for the songs if nothing else, especially 'Someone You Hate Dies,' an instant classic. Composer Brad Kemp, choreographer Lauren Lopez, and musical director Charlie Worth pull off an amazing job of creating immersive, polished numbers in a relatively small space."
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