Whorl Inside a Loop NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (44)
See it if You want a thought-provoking play that is brilliantly acted and smart.
Don't see it if You don't like small ensembles, playing multiple parts.
See it if You love great performances and like the show Orange is the new Black
Don't see it if You don't like stories about Prison
See it if ready to see 6 actors play over 20 roles
Don't see it if cynical
See it if you want to see a play that explores artistic inspiration and exploitation between different classes of society. Fantastic final scene!
Don't see it if you have difficulty following actors portraying multiple roles within a piece.
See it if you enjoy a little meta with your comedy
Don't see it if you can't enjoy a good funny show
See it if Intense superbly written and acted. Riveting story.
Don't see it if you don't like minimalist sets.
See it if you want a play exploring not only the prison system in America, but the audience's own culpability in commoditizing the prisoners' stories.
Don't see it if you dont' want to look at the way rich NYC audiences use portrayals of struggling people to make themselves feel empathetic and enlightened.
See it if Great performances from the entire cast. While not fully developed, all the characters feel like real people. Eloquent vignettes.
Don't see it if SRC's character might be annoying for some though she's necessary. For some people this play won't go far enough & may be frustrating.
Critic Reviews (22)
"'Whorl Inside a Loop' is both dramatically rewarding and very topical. With prison reform in the spotlight these days, the play offers much needed insight. However, more than anything else it is also highly entertaining...Amid its many virtues, 'Whorl Inside a Loop' still needs some work, particularly in the final scenes which are unnecessarily ambiguous. That aside, the play is, pardon the pun, truly captivating."
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"'Whorl' is told through heaps of wit and thrillingly inventive staging. More important, it's a powerful reminder of the existence and basic humanity of our incarcerated fellow Americans whom many of us would rather forget...Everything here is tight, specific, and believable...'Whorl Inside a Loop' will be very hard for many of us to forget."
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"The prison scenes are perfectly tense and raw, but when the action leaves the facility, the volunteer's world is played with broad, sometimes cartoonish strokes, decreasing their impact...Despite the snags, when 'Whorl Inside a Loop' is working, the play delivers some powerful theatre. Fortunately, it works quite a lot."
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"If you're looking for a sheer explosion of talent, you can't do much better than 'Whorl Inside a Loop,' in which half a dozen black actors bring to life a roomful of convicts with lively, funny, harrowing, and thoroughly riveting stories to tell...Well-intentioned, filled with talent, 'Whorl Inside a Loop' is something of a mess. In any number of passages it captivates, but when the focus shifts away from the men in prison, you may have to simply grin and bear it."
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"Intriguing but rough-edged new play...With so much to ponder and so little point, we need a cleaner, sharper journey to where we're going. The prisoners have essentially an infinity to ponder the nuances and intricacies of what they're doing. We have much less time to waste, even in pursuit of 'Whorl Inside a Loop's' noble, fascinating idea."
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"The play has moments that are moving, humorous, and gripping. But these qualities exist on separate planes. They’re never synthesized, and they’re supplemented by passages that annoy rather than enlighten or entertain...The title 'Whorl inside a Loop' refers to an alleged characteristic of The Volunteer’s fingerprints, indicating she’s loyal, loving, manipulative, amoral, narcissistic, trustworthy, capable of acts of extreme kindness, and sociopathic with criminal tendencies. Like the play, she’s all over the map."
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"There is much that is admirable and even heart-warming about the play. Yet, the creative team more or less manages to turn the inmates into supporting players in what should be their story...What’s good about 'Whorl Inside a Loop,' especially the acting, would make its self-indulgent aspects matter less, if the show weren’t entering a theatrical landscape already dotted with well-done prison dramas, most notable among them plays created and performed by ex-inmates."
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"The actors, playing both men and women, and creating the sound effects themselves, display their versatility through distinctive alterations in body language and speech; despite the laughs they draw, however, these bits—especially the racial and gender-crossing ones—tend to be distractingly exaggerated...It’s a stretch to accept the premise...An interesting, if flawed, play."
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