Athena NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (11)
See it if you want an absorbing, beautifully choreographed (fencing), genuinely funny play about the brilliance, meanness, and heart of teen girls.
Don't see it if you only like realistic drama/dialogue, you dislike seeing the ambiguity of teen friendships, you want a clear emotionally satisfying end.
See it if You like to see modern drama subtly pushed into new territory
Don't see it if You need a 100% professional looking production Read more
See it if Two fencers spar athletically and personally. Very well-written and acted.
Don't see it if See it. It's good theater.
See it if You enjoy funny and at times intense stories about adolescent girls. (Think The Wolves)
Don't see it if You want a bigger ensemble piece or if you don't like shows without intermissions.
See it if Very well acted by leads, Gardner's dramedy starts out about female empowerment but ends on the fragility of female bonding Taut staging
Don't see it if Claustrophobic at times due to play's setting & the attention to young women's needs & attitudes may feel rigid yet author's focus admirable
See it if you enjoy stories of girls/teens growing up; tho predictable at times, this is well-done & often rings true.
Don't see it if you need lots of drama to stay awake; yes, there is fencing action, but this is more abt relationship building btwn two teens. Read more
See it if you’re aware of how competition differs for women; liked The Wolves (snapshot progression, understated aesthetic, artificial teen dialog)
Don't see it if you like the highs & lows that usually come w/ sports narratives, are put off by not-entirely-successful naturalism Read more
See it if You witness the friendship and rivalry of two high schools. Some parts are very thoughtful, other parts hilarious
Don't see it if you don't like simple staging and dialogue heavy plays
Critic Reviews (4)
"The structure of 'Athena' can feel too pat, the culminating bout predictable. But to director Miller’s credit, that bout is a long, real-time slog up and down the piste, effortful and tough, and a little ugly...The play treats these girls and their ambitions with the seriousness they deserve...The twining of these characters and performances makes 'Athena' hugely appealing and stealthily moving...Parts of it cut so close to lived female experience, that they hardly feel like fiction at all."
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"This taut new play about precocious teen athletes is blessed with an exemplary cast...Miller guides Awe and Greer through a series of brief but meaty scenes that trace the girls’ relationship from strangers to competitors to sort-of friends. Gardner’s script skillfully employs teen drama stereotypes to first play into, then subvert audience expectations. The world of the play seems both highly specific and deeply relatable...A remarkably assured and insightful work."
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"Emma Miller’s production is a solid rendering but there is perhaps a deeper layer of Gardner’s work that does not completely rise to the surface. However, 'Athena' is time well spent with these vibrant, truthful characters...Awe and Greer do valiant work. They carry the burden of the rich text well and roll with the humor and the physicality of fencing. However, when the drama escalates at the end, their performances lack the buoyancy to lift the play to that final emotional crescendo."
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"Wily and entertaining...The two are precocious, preternaturally funny, and hyper-articulate. But the intense, quirky Athena complicates this combination with an underlying emotional opaqueness...This ambiguity is one of the play’s finer touches...Undermining this dry humor, though, is Gardner’s difficulty in filling in the girls’ outlines and differentiating their voices. At least when the inevitable showdown comes, Gardner adds an interesting twist."
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