Wild Goose Dreams

“One of the most visually spectacular plays that still retains its sense of simplicity...The tenderness, comedy and heartbreak of this masterful piece are owed to...the fantastic cast all through the visionary, clever direction of Silverman. But the most credit must be given to the female playwright Jung, who has breathed life into such incredibly and beautifully human characters who exhibit the timeless and universal traits of strength, fragility, love and longing in the most modern setting.” Full Review

“’Wild Goose Dreams’ is cluttered with cleverness, awash with theatrical invention. What makes the play worth seeing, though, is its quieter but in many ways richer aspects – the complexity and pathos of the three central characters...There is much humor and several awww-inspiring moments...Silverman also deserves credit for the three central performances, which manage to be both unaffected and affecting, straightforwardly credible and somehow also deeply lyrical." Full Review

"I rarely have the experience of being extremely excited and engaged in the beginning of a play, and at the end being unsure of what I was supposed to be taking away...There are so many good elements to this production. So many good ideas about presenting a computer chorus which worked – but it needs to be carried through a whole piece. Kudos to Hansol Jung for thinking of it and kudos to Leigh Silverman the director for shaping it so well." Full Review

"'Wild Goose Dreams' counters this energetic and immersive setting with a quiet, upsetting, and timely story about the chasm between the connections we dream of and the loneliness we contend with...The show demands a range of affect from its leads – Peter Kim, Michelle Krusiec, and Francis Jue – and they mostly deliver. They each delve into loneliness, love, anger, tenderness, terror, hope, and humor. But the stagecraft, under Silverman’s direction, was even more impressive." Full Review

“Jung’s maginatively told Internet Age romance...If the text and staging's complicated (and admirably realized) impersonation of 21st century communication sometimes overwhelms the emotional factor, it's an apt comment displaying the parallels between storybook fables of angels and woodcutters and technologically sophisticated fantasies, sometimes involving defectors and goose fathers.” Full Review

“All the lavish ancillary bells and whistles smothered the main event. While I was often entertained by the latest surprise in Ramos’s set, Cho's clever costumes and the inventive direction of Silverman, I felt that they somehow diminished the central story. There were occasions when it was confusing to know what was transpiring. My favorite moments were the quieter ones when there was less attempt to grab attention...I was certainly never bored.” Full Review

“A tale of loneliness in a globalized, mediated, relentlessly ‘connected’ world...Jung’s play is in part about getting lost in technology, and it’s exciting to see the production create that effect physically and theatrically...A bulk of this human effort comes from the play’s chorus...Jung’s writing always has a light touch, even when things get heavy, and Silverman is doing sensitive work with the cast, especially Krusiec and Kim...Connection, Jung is arguing, is life, but connectivity can ... Full Review

"Playwright Jung, while doing an excellent job in the quiet moments of the struggle to find meaning in the modern-day connection, loses herself in 'Wild Goose Dreams‘ overly conscious cleverness...It’s a grand spectacle and some YouTube fun, even when drenched with sadness, that create an enjoyable dive into the modern world of emotional engagement, but the overall effect leaves you as satisfied as a fine internet date that you know, in the long-term, will be forgotten quickly." Full Review

"Jung is a perceptive, talented writer with a fresh point of view and material that is both exotic and oddly universal. Now, if only she could learn to dial it down a bit...On balance, I'd say that 'Wild Goose Dreams' is worth seeing, for the many emotionally resonant passages, the acute lead performances, and the window into a world that the theatre rarely shows us. But in the urge to theatricalize everything about their story, its creators nearly destroy the delicate situation at its heart." Full Review

"The diverse and untethered world has been given remarkably coherent life by a design team...Ms. Jung, a writer of industrious imagination, has a poet’s gift for sustaining and interlinking motifs and metaphor. Still, the piling up of incidents and images and subplots has a congestive effect here, blurring our focus and blunting our emotional responses...Holding fast as the play’s still but agitated center, Mr. Kim and Ms. Krusiec bring a lovely, low-key air of bewilderment to the proceedings." Full Review

“A tricky play, full of both richness and distraction. The core story of Nanhee and Minsung is artfully constructed...This beautiful center, though, is often obscured by the stagey ‘online’ and dream elements; the chorus and the penguin stuff feel extraneous and cutesy...Still director Leigh Silverman draws keen, vivid performances from Krusiec and Kim, and their interpersonal drama is quite moving in its combination of stunned sadness and gallows humor.” Full Review

“Jung's method of overlaying the digital onto the physical world is clever, and Silverman's realization of the intricate script is skillful...But with so much attention devoted to sorting through all the digital noise of this world, some of the underlying plot points become jumbled. Kim and Krusiec offer charming and appealing performances, yet the Minsung/Nanhee love story ends up feeling unevenly developed." Full Review

“This new play centers on two lonely South Koreans and attempts to song-and-dance-ify the internet itself. The different pieces, each powerful on its own, yields a result that manages to be sometimes intriguing, occasionally heartbreaking, and not a little soporific...When ’Wild Goose Dreams’ is best is when it’s examining...the faults in a seemingly happily neon-lit culture...For the purposes of this story, the distractions of the internet are just a distraction.” Full Review

"I’m not sure the play could possibly succeed at all the things it’s trying to do, and in the end I think it sometimes leans on its structural complexity at the expense of a fully realized emotional landscape...But there’s still so many things to enjoy, ruminate on, appreciate, and startle at. 'Wild Goose Dreams' is worth seeing for its innovative approach to our twenty-first-century identities and its dreamscapes even if it doesn’t catch all the balls it throws into the air." Full Review

“In offering a window on a world most New York theatergoers know little about, Hansol Jung's ‘Wild Goose Dreams’ is a fascinating look at Korean culture. On the other hand, what appears to be a Korean obsession with the Internet and smartphones often becomes tedious as it goes on so long without bringing us much that is new. Leigh Silverman's busy production creates a world of its own but is often overwhelming rather than enveloping.” Full Review

"Theatrically and intellectually interesting if insufficiently moving and dramatically diffuse…Mingles straightforward realism with surrealistic sequences of highly stylized voice and movement…The scenes between the lovers tend more toward the ordinary and conventional than anything notably insightful or touching…And, given the sacrifices involved, the defector theme seems weak…Most memorable is Ramos's exuberantly imaginative set…I can't really say my heart goes where this wild goose goes." Full Review

"A flavorful if wildly over cluttered portrait of star-crossed romance...The simple tale is quietly touching. Unfortunately, the playwright overwhelms her slight story with overelaborate theatrical gimmickry...There's not enough meat on the play's bones to withstand all the theatrical affectations; the characters and storyline become subsumed long before the evening's conclusion...Its quiet charms are too indecipherable amid the internet babble.” Full Review

“Silverman directed the cast and the traffic with her usual expertise. The chorus members exhibit much vigor and verve...Kim and Krusiec imbue Minsung and Nanhee with the correct measure of uncertainty. The right measure of chemistry between them, however, is missing...The most exciting ‘Wild Goose Dreams’ element is Ramos’ set...Ramos’ environment promises more amusement that the more than occasionally tedious ‘Wild Goose Dreams’ delivers.” Full Review

“If 'Wild Goose Dreams' were set in the last century, we might expect to find some of this computer lingo exotic, maybe even amusing...Sexually skittish characters played by Kim and Krusiec appear to be performing in a very conventional rom-com despite all the talk of North Korea. Also mawkish is the stilted English they speak, even though this couple is apparently talking in their native Korean...That always-lively computer chorus is far more engaging than Yoo and Guk." Full Review

"As the underutilized Greek chorus filled the stage delivering the cacophonous sounds of technology...Ninety minutes later...Jung’s play continued to spew extraneous technobabble...Director Silverman and playwright Jung deserve major accolades for attempting to push the boundaries of conventional theater, and there is some poetically beautiful language. Yet the abstruse nature of 'Wild Goose Dreams' ultimately clouds the vital message about human connection." Full Review

“Jung’s 'Wild Goose Dreams' is lost in translation in several respects...I found the dialogue between the two protagonists to be excruciatingly naive, especially given their thus far respective painful life journeys. Nevertheless, I took to some of the themes Jung has on her agenda...loneliness in our world of connectivity, as well as the definition of love...Silverman valiantly endeavors to bring pizzazz to Ms. Jung’s busy but flat play, as do her over-eager cast.” Full Review