Bad Penny NYC Reviews and Tickets

74%

(14 Reviews)

Positive

72%

Mixed

14%

Negative

14%

Members say

Quirky, Delightful, Refreshing, Absorbing, Confusing

About the Show

Part of The Flea's "Mac Wellman: Perfect Catastrophes" series, "Bad Penny" asks: how do we make choices in the face of the end of the world as we know it?

From the show:

HEADS. TAILS. THE PARK. THE BOATMAN.

A man and a woman sit in a park. They appear to be a couple, but aren’t. The man is clutching a car tire. The woman has a penny in her pocket. The mythical Boatman of Bow Bridge is coming. He is coming to take away the person who is in possession of the penny. How do we make choices in the face of the end of the world as we know it?

Member Reviews (14)

Great staging, Great acting

See it if You want to see something in a nontraditional space. This was done outside in a courtyard

Don't see it if You are expecting to show up in a theater sit in a seat and watch a play that takes place on stage Read more

Quirky, Confusing, Ambitious

See it if you like Mac Wellman and the edgy theater the Flea is known for.

Don't see it if you expect to understand what is going on. Fun to watch, but ultimately I didn't get it.

Critic Reviews (5)

September 9th, 2019

Laura Collins-Hughes

"Mac Wellman’s ‘Bad Penny’ Promises a Boat Ride to Hell: The Flea Theater has revived this brief play, in which a flat tire is the least of the problems you might encounter in Central Park."
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September 8th, 2019

Joe Lombardi

"Mac Wellman's skewering of America in 'BAD PENNY' and 'SINCERITY FOREVER' at Flea Theater"
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September 21st, 2019

Victor Gluck

"From the evidence of the 1990 Sincerity Forever and 1989 'Bad Penny,' Wellman is not particularly interested in plot but makes copious use of satire, poetry and symbolism to write absurdist plays which skewer hypocrisy and pretense in America."
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September 7th, 2019

Jonathan Mandell

"A day in the park in New York, but it's not a walk in the park….a heightened dramatic distillation and affectionate parody of what it's like to live in New York, and... to be a New Yorker.. would surely have worked better in a set, or setting, more recognizably NYC."
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September 7th, 2019

Samuel L. Leiter

"Nonlinear, linguistically challenging, intellectually slippery, politically charged, and morally determined…Wellman's script reveals considerable wit mingled with numerous provocative notions. Very little, however, comes through in the Flea's jumbled production."
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