Unraveled NYC Reviews and Tickets

79%

(83 Reviews)

Positive

88%

Mixed

11%

Negative

Members say

Absorbing, Great acting, Relevant, Thought-provoking, Intelligent

About the Show

Joy Gallagher, a professor of philosophy and physics, comes to terms with the certain death of her mother. A play about time, space, memory…and the tangle of life.

Joy has spent her life pursuing ways to explain space and time. But her theories haven’t prepared her for a heart-rending reality: illness has transformed her glamorous, quick-witted mother, George, into a woman she doesn’t recognize….and who cannot recognize Joy. Struggling with the pressures of career, caregiving, and impending loss, Joy hires Anna, a hospice nurse, to help. But as George develops a unique bond with Anna, Joy feels her mother slipping even further away. When time and space start to work against her, can Joy keep everything from unraveling?

Member Reviews (83)

Indulgent, Disappointing, Needs work, Uneven

See it if interesting storytelling though it needs work. Entertaining enough.

Don't see it if The main character is excruciating to watch. Stilted acting and no chemistry with any other actors. Even wardrobe for her was too severe.

Disappointing, Uneven, Has potential, Good story

See it if You are interested in stories about coping w/ aging parents or dementia.Quick 75min play. The woman playing the older mother was great!

Don't see it if The play has potential but the acting was very uneven. Someone is miscast and it unfortunately took away from the show.

Disappointing, Intelligent, Unmemorable, Relevant, Slow

See it if you want to see a smart but familiar story of a mother & daughter dealing with the strains of their relationship & end-of-life care.

Don't see it if you expect anything profound or original on the subject of shared memories, dementia, terminal illness, aging or familial relationships.

Absorbing, Relevant, Instructional, Great acting

See it if Watch, learn and plan for the day when memory loss happens to someone close. Good theatre can be educational for both parent and child.

Don't see it if You aren’t prepared to deal with an inevitable issue and realistically portrayed situations that may happen.

Intelligent, Absorbing, Thought-provoking

See it if you're interested in plays about real life issues such as family, aging, and illness. Interesting portrayal of mother daughter relationship.

Don't see it if aging or dementia is too close to home for you and might trigger you, you are looking for a fun show.

Intense, Relevant, Too close to my daily life

See it if You live any of these people's lives and seek validation or you have no experience in death and dying and seek it.

Don't see it if Death, dying, displaced anger, and a magical thinking ending are not for you. You dont like overlapping dialogue and scenes. Read more

Absorbing, Entertaining, Great acting

See it if You like plays which interweave past and present related stories and explore the psyche of well-developed characters.

Don't see it if You do not particularly enjoy stories about mother-daughter relationships and/or terminally ill characters affect you too much.

Fine acting, Manipulative, Relevant, Unfilled potential, Good direction

See it if you are interested in plays about dementia, excellent acting and direction and good dialog.

Don't see it if you dislike plays that are emotionally manipulative, somewhat flawed presentation of the main character and are overly sentimental.

Critic Reviews (2)

“’Unraveled’ left me snarled and it shouldn’t have. Despite my ignorance of physics, I am unfortunately familiar with ‘Unraveled’s’ subject and theme: the effect on family of late-in-life loss of selfhood...I was indifferent to most of the characters — Joy, George the Younger, and Joy’s swain Michael— but I found Ladonna Burns the hospice caregiver and Susanna Hay as Old George very moving in roles that were well written.”
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"Generally uninvolving….Adds little to the growing genre…Well-worn tale of a grown child coming to grips with a parent's decline makes a frail attempt at offering something new by having the child…serve up some didactic mumbo jumbo...Focus on the fluidity of time inspires the structural approach of simultaneously depicting Joy and her mother…across two time zones…Performances go from the high quality of Burns and Hay...to less inspired work."
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