Cal in Camo NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (31)
See it if You like a good truthful story about marriage, family, struggle, and disappointment, and mistakes and will they keep it together?!
Don't see it if You want sugar coating of real family in its beginnings.
See it if You can appreciate a small play that packs a big punch with complex characters and great performances (esp. David Harbour!)
Don't see it if You're not fond of plays w/ characters who are lost and lonely and whose lives are a bit grimy (literally in one case)
See it if You want to be frightened, saddened and uplifted. You are inspired by well-developed characters coping with challenging circumstances.
Don't see it if The following themes don't interest you: postpartum depression, man & nature, and our need for connection.
See it if you want a drama about alienation and man's primal need for attachment. You are interested in characters on the brink.
Don't see it if you want an unambiguous takeaway message or an action-packed plot. Here you are steeped in a mood: desperation tinged with hope.
See it if you like flawed characters trying their best to survive
Don't see it if you don't like realistic plays that deal with the messiness of relationships and life
See it if You want to see a trio of fine actors coping with the trials in their lives.
Don't see it if You are interested in light comedy. These characters have serious life issues.
See it if you like to see characters growth.
Don't see it if you don't like plays dealing with dysfunction.
See it if You recognize the frustrations and uncertainties of roles we choose to live. Excellent acting (esp. Barbour). Writing a little uneven.
Don't see it if You are unequal to seeing disillusionment. Some nudity.
Critic Reviews (10)
"An earnest and tenderhearted play about the search for family…Staged with scrupulous attention to detail by the director, Adrienne Campbell-Holt, and an expert design team, this production shares its characters’ questing and sometimes awkward sincerity…Wesley, Campbell and Harbour convincingly convey the awkwardness of people out of their element. But they can’t disguise a sense of spontaneous character sometimes being subordinated to a writer’s cosmic purposes."
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"William Francis Hoffman’s powerful, too-brief 'Cal in Camo' is ruthlessly grown-up...In fiercely written dialogues, each damaged person unlocks another. Hoffman writes beautifully for actors: climactic, showcase scenes (if not yet the interstitial bits or the plot). In these bravura moments, Campbell is startling and Wesley is superbly vulnerable. But it’s Harbour, his massive buffalo forehead beetled down in confusion, who’s unmissable here. His performance fills the room."
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“An exercise in clinical depression that seems determined to be as off-putting as possible...The playwright is so busy drawing neat little dramatic patterns that he never gets around to creating characters who make any sort of psychological sense...As Flynt, a one-dimensional icon of suffering, Paul Wesley is hopelessly lumbered...The people don't make sense, but as long as the symbols are in place, I guess the author is happy.”
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"Playwright Hoffman offers a quirky, weirdly compelling if not totally satisfying take on contemporary American life. Mr. Hoffman’s dialogue is richly expressive bordering on poetic and enhances his true-to-life melancholic characters. The plot is slender and problematic...Adrienne Campbell-Holt’s direction realizes the material with the thoughtful performances and proficient physical staging...'Cal in Camo' is interestingly odd but is off-kilter."
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"Their mysteriousness may be an intentional product or simply a result of the characters being a means to the author's end; either way, it can obfuscate the action of the play, or at least distance us from what is otherwise a production characterized by its immediacy. At its best, though, that immediacy can certainly be quite gripping...In this production, with the care of Campbell-Holt and the commitment of the actors, it's the power of feeling that leaves the strongest mark."
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"Directed with precision and style by Adrienne Campbell-Holt, 'Cal in Camo' often gets away with a too-heavy use of symbolic imagery by having the actors play everything right on the surface...Harbour is terrific as the man who tries to deny his primal instincts in the name of civilization, while Campbell is devastating, and ultimately haunting...Wesley, however, is the play’s true revelation...He brings a childlike wonder and sweetness to a part that might have been played just for show."
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“Although the ensemble cast members deliver impressive performances with authenticity and believability, Mr. Hoffman’s script is somewhat less impressive as is Adrienne Campbell-Holt’s direction. The script is often less than believable and the characters' traits are not always consistent. Ms. Campbell-Holt’s direction is serviceable but rarely stretches beyond the basics...However, ‘Cal in Camo’ is at times an engaging psychological study of one fractured family system.”
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"‘Cal in Camo’...is a well-acted, naturalistic, emotionally taut, kitchen-sink drama peppered with ambiguity...Some of it is straightforward, some is surreal, some is funny, and some is opaque...‘Cal in Camo’ teeters too often near symbolism's slippery sinkhole...but the play's savory dialogue and credible performances grasp you tightly enough to keep you involved throughout its 70 intermissionless minutes."
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