Death of a Driver
Death of a Driver
Closed 1h 25m NYC: Chelsea
82% 56 reviews
82%
(56 Ratings)
Positive
91%
Mixed
7%
Negative
2%
Members say
Great acting, Absorbing, Thought-provoking, Intelligent, Relevant

About the Show

This world premiere from Urban Stages offers a bracing examination of "doing good" abroad, the limits of understanding another person, and what happens when personal and political obligations collide.

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Critic Reviews (5)

TheaterScene.net
March 5th, 2019

"But something about 'Death of a Driver' never quite catches fire. The story has gravity but lacks the sense of pity and terror that tragedy is famously supposed to invoke. Maybe it's partly due to the fact that the play is so brief, and that its short scenes sometimes take place years apart, creating a kind of herky-jerky quality. Maybe it's because the world of the play is relatively narrow-with the lack of supporting characters preventing us from getting a full sense of the Kenyan culture."
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Theater Pizzazz
March 5th, 2019

"Top quality theater... Snider provides an intriguing and entertaining story that will keep you captivated and intrigued from start to finish...Both Baskin and Ssenjovu’s performances are strong, clear, natural and come from an authentic place...Direction by Kim T. Sharp seems to have allowed the actors to strip themselves of cumbersome paraphernalia and rely solely on their characterizations and dialogue which has been a refreshing choice that suits the play well."
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Broadway Blog
March 5th, 2019

"There's little here that, with a few tweaks, would prevent the play from being set in any third-world country. The debate over the standards foreign companies must follow when dealing with crooked governments…is a universal one about which Snider offers little enlightenment…More promising, emotionally, at least, is his treatment of Sarah and Kennedy's friendship…It's a promise, though, that the play's talky, episodic, time-spanning, mostly actionless plot never quite fulfills."
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StageBiz.com
March 5th, 2019

"Successful in delivering the words with a punch...Baskin and Ssenjovu have two things that are essential to making such a play work. First, both are fine actors...The second thing that makes this work is their chemistry...It isn’t just a case of two gifted actors performing their roles, but of two gifted actors performing as a team...One cannot help but leave the theatre impressed by the power of the show’s simplicity and by the surgically precise execution."
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NYC Splash
March 5th, 2019

"Snider takes care to establish two fully realized characters...When the lights go low for the jail scenes, so does, for the most part, the energy of the play, the intensity of the emotion, the crispness of the pacing. And yet 'Death of a Driver'—with its earnest, resolute characters and rich dialogue, its sharp, human wit, and the deft, physical manner in which Baskin and Ssenjovu navigate the external playing fields—often makes for a gripping, captivating night in the theater."
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