Ballyturk NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (36)
See it if you are a fan of existential theater that makes you think, particularly about life and death.
Don't see it if you are looking for a typical narrative play with a straightforward plot.
See it if you like Beckett, Pinter; absurd, challenging, thought-provoking plays, Enda Walsh & his poetic writing combined with manic action
Don't see it if you want a traditional easy-to-follow story that you don't analyze long after you leave Read more
See it if u want modern, hyper, hectic, confusing but passionate and heartfelt ultra-contemporary theater about dystopian living, community & kinship
Don't see it if u don't like Enda Walsh. Nightmarish violent confusing challenging rapid-fire & ultimately tragic & eloquently beautiful. Not for everyone
See it if you enjoy the expressionist, dystopian fables of Enda Walsh, sometimes disarming, often challenging, but always riveting, artful & touching.
Don't see it if you don't think you'll dig an abstract mashup of Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Sartre's No Exit, Emma Donoghue's "Room" & Morecambe and Wise.
See it if You like your theater difficult and thought-provoking to the point of confusion. Also maniacally funny. Or if you are a child of Beckett.
Don't see it if If you favor plots, coherency, logical progression and realism in acting and drama stay away from St. Anne's. Read more
See it if You're a fan of Enda Walsh & contemporary Irish theater, enjoy Beckett-like plots, like visceral, physical acting and awe-inspiring endings
Don't see it if You don't like frantic, bizarrely verbal plays, don't like plots that despite insane activity seem to be static, spiritual or focus on death
See it if you enjoy Enda Walsh's erratic surrealist take on existential issues. If you enjoy Beckett or non-linear innovative storytelling.
Don't see it if You want a conventional experience at a theater. The experience of an Enda Walsh play can be quite visceral and not for everybody.
See it if you enjoy abstract plays which veer more towards the absurd. A challenging play w/different layers of meaning. Great acting, staging & sound
Don't see it if you're looking for a play that is easy to interpret. This is an unusual piece of work and will certainly not be for everyone.
Critic Reviews (15)
"'Ballyturk' isn’t easily explained, nor do we even need to in order to take in the pleasure of viewing such a wildly captivating creation. We just need to give ourselves over to the bleak oddness, and enjoy…This incredibly well staged production brings to mind the classic absurdism of the powerful and dark ‘Waiting For Godot.’ It tantalizes with its abstract creationism and vagueness…Walsh has found the best of both worlds, puzzling our head, while also engaging our hearts."
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“'Ballyturk'…challenges audiences to break through its surrealistic shield to pick up whatever crumbs of meaning it may now and then deign to share…Walsh's dreamlike combination of slapstick farce, ritual, violence, dance, music, mime, intellectual abstraction, colloquially accessible and lyrically poetic dialogue, Beckettian overtones…, and narrative confusion is performed…with such exceptional conviction that the play's meaning becomes secondary to its physical and vocal expression.”
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"In the drama’s most heartbreaking moment, Murphy’s character recites the names of Ballyturk’s inhabitants, while Murfi’s character impersonates them in rapid succession...The most frightening moment is Fouere’s spectacular entrance...In other words, the best moments in 'Ballyturk' have more to do with Walsh’s direction of his play than what he’s given his characters to say...As a director, Walsh is visceral and vivid. As a writer, he enjoys being obscure."
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“Walsh churns out careening, logorrheic scripts that spurn narrative cohesion and embrace a gritty, athletic staging...We never quite grasp the specific relationship between the men...To lighten the mood, Walsh choreographs nutty dance sequences...Walsh explores the limitations of descriptive language and the perilous gap between imagination and reality...One can’t really grumble that Walsh shirks meaning when, in fact, he bashes it on the nose.”
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"The play is closer to a meditation on death; that undiscovered country...Fouéré’s is a fascinating performance...The manic energy of 'Ballyturk’s' routine, excellently delivered by Murfi and Murphy’s double act, stills with her arrival and a proposal: It’s time for one of them to leave. What they would be departing in 'Ballyturk' is a world of cartoonish exaggeration, tumbling with madcap fictions, avalanches of props and shrieking impersonations - in short, an Enda Walsh play."
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"Wild, zany, dark, and hilarious, 'Ballyturk’s' march through the mayhem of Walsh’s imagination boldly goes where other scripts fear to go. And when it gets there it is very, very good indeed. But when it misses the mark, it can be something of a struggle...It’s still more potent than many other works out there...At its best, 'Ballyturk' is theatrical poetry steeped in sense, nonsense, image, and metaphor...A uniquely powerful theatrical experience."
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"The play is essentially a piece of meta-Walsh, a comment on his own writing practice, one that cannibalizes his earlier themes, characters and motifs. At times, it’s a riot. But the strongest sense of the piece now, three years on, is as a staging post: the work of a writer coming to the end of one approach, and about to begin another...Where Rea was sardonic and innately funny, Fouere plays it straight and humorless. Again, it’s simply not as effective this time round."
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