You Never Touched the Dirt NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (10)
See it if Dislocated city & country dwellers experience culture clash & loss of meaning in their lives. Great staging w hilarious animal scenes.
Don't see it if You are not interested in Chinese issues, parents feeling separated from their children, & class differences making people feel inadequate.
See it if you have any interest at all in new ways of constructing drama.
Don't see it if you are looking for the old-fashioned virtues of the well-made play. Read more
See it if Chinese socio-political observation interests you. Characters from different classes interact in a newly developed Shanghai suburb.
Don't see it if consistency matters to you. The performance is a mix of naturalistic acting, didactic commentary, ritual & some styles that don't have names
See it if Modern Chinese issues very cleverly staged by Clubbed Thumb. Charming set used by talented cast with the excellent Daniel K. Isaac.
Don't see it if Appropriated land, class and inequality. Hilarious use of dolls as animals, including a fight between a dog and a goose. Meaningful and fun Read more
See it if You appreciate fresh and interesting story-telling. You are interested in modern Chinese history, politics, and economics.
Don't see it if You require naturalistic and sophisticated settings and production values. Read more
See it if Visually stunning, presents a host of class warfare, local earth gods, and the lingering ghosts of the land in a now-capitalist China.
Don't see it if For all of the fantastic choices throughout, much of the play's speech (often allegorical) has a dulling effect on the action and atmosphere
See it if You want to see something truly original and want to see Daniel K Isaacs in a small play.
Don't see it if You don't like quirky vignettes within a one-act narrative. Read more
See it if you want to support Asian voice and actors - this play brought history and present together in an interesting staging
Don't see it if you want your shows to be cut to right size already - it was interesting and well staged, just a bit too long in some parts
Critic Reviews (2)
"The ninety-minute piece...resembles a children's theatre production, with set designer Andrew Moerdyk focusing on bright, primary colors, a doll house sized villa set upstage and, as scripted, on-stage actors voicing the barks and baaaas for prop animals...The small issues that arise among the different classes of this supposedly classless society add up to a charmingly told exploration of the human search for community, be it through people, places or lifestyles."
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“The strikingly clever production, excellently directed by Ken Russ Schmoll, finds a perfect visual idiom to capture the play’s complicated tone, using manipulations of scale to create both deadpan humor and a weird poignancy...There’s a lot going on for a 90-minute play–perhaps too much at times...But these are tiny quibbles... especially given how wonderful the production is: witty, smart, absurdist, but also poignant."
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Creative team
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