White Noise NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (171)
See it if You are a fan of no plot plays. This is more of an experience than a play. It will exercise your brain and probably upset you.
Don't see it if You’re looking for a happy evening and non stressful experience. This can re-open your eyes regarding politics.
See it if you want to see a beautifully crafted, disturbing piece about white privilege and the African American experience. play knows no bounds
Don't see it if you are easily disturbed by a playwright that shakes the dice and alters the playing field in ways that may make you uncomfy
See it if The central conceit of this is a 2x4 against the back of the head. It’s a paradox. Contrived but real that excavates 100 years of history.
Don't see it if There are a couple of plot contrivances that may be impossible to ignore for some.
See it if Great acting and writing. Draws you into the story. I found myself asking questions I never really thought of before.
Don't see it if You are uncomfortable with racial issues in your fact.
See it if A chance to see Daveed Diggs talent in a smaller venue, amazing. Unusual premise, challenging monologues, Parks always delivers a jolt.
Don't see it if It felt very long, I began to blank out during some of the longer speeches. If you are not interested in issues of racial identity do not go
See it if intense stories on how racial relations have been affected by our histories, our personal ones and the legacy of slavery; 4 characters*
Don't see it if don't want violence or sex on stage; 3 hours would be too long no matter how riveting (although a couple of the monologues got a bit wordy) Read more
See it if you enjoy intense and emotionally powerful play that deals with racial subtext and slavery.
Don't see it if you are easily disturbed by racial or slavery references or don’t want to sit for over 3 hrs even though it flies by.
See it if You love Daveed Diggs, discussions of complex issues on race, slavery, Black Lives Matter, fantastic acting,
Don't see it if A confrontational approach to racial power dynamics a la the Stanford Prison experiment would be upsetting. Read more
Critic Reviews (28)
"[A]bsent, for the most part, is the formal experimentation she is famous for: the decidedly nonmimetic dialogue and action, the musicality of the words (Parks is also a singer, songwriter, and guitarist). But few playwrights have wielded as much control, as much precision over their language as she, and really, it should come as no surprise that Parks can effortlessly produce the conventional, too, but with the kind of emotional wallop that this dried-up form rarely sees anymore."
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"It’s only as the play unfolds that Ms. Parks eventually weaves in the inevitability and heightened urgency associated with the larger canvas of Greek tragedy...Eustis, the Public’s enthusiastic artistic director, has guided the work with unnerving lucidity, bringing Ms. Parks’ provocative ideas to the fore with care and stinging evenhandedness...As Leo, Daveed Diggs is just about ideal as the play’s troubled nexus, giving a slow-burning, wonderfully-calibrated performance."
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"Too much like a ripped-from-the-headlines issue play for a writer who traffics most often in the realm of metaphor...It feels more timely and perhaps for that reason, heavy-handed...The cast is sharp...and Oskar Eustis’s direction impressively shapes the contours of the script, but the play remains loose and often divergent...And yet, as the three-hour production turns for its home stretch, it succeeds in conjuring a tension that disturbs and frightens in its immediacy."
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“’White Noise’ asks big. Very big...This thrilling and exhausting play has four characters...Act 2 gives us monologues...These solos are so eloquently written, so beautifully delivered, that we are startled by one insight after another, awash in both sympathy and guilt and anger. Eustis directs with masterful hand, meeting every theatrical demand Parks’ script places on him...To say more would spoil the plot’s revelations. Enough to say: Go see it.”
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