Eddie and Dave NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (54)
See it if You want to have a fun evening. I had no idea that this play was about, but I learned a lot about Van Halen, and laughed a lot.
Don't see it if You don’t like gender bending roles. The male roles are played by women and Valerie Bertinelli is played by a man. Read more
See it if You want to see an unusual look at a famous rock group. Two women and a man exchange gender roles.
Don't see it if You don’t care about Van Halen.
See it if you're nostalgic for 1980s MTV culture, were a Van Halen or David Lee Roth fan, or enjoy weird quirky shows.
Don't see it if you don't like quirky plays which switch the gender roles of characters, have no interest in pop culture of 1980s, or want a serious play
See it if Still want your MTV? A fun look at Van Halen, the success, failures, personal "highs" and lows made all the better by the gender switching.
Don't see it if You expect a story about rockers to be a musical.
See it if you like fun, theatrical, weird, stylized comedies that remind you how playful theater can be.
Don't see it if you're looking for some realism. You won't find it here. (That doesn't mean you won't find honest performances!)
See it if liked the concept of women playing the roles.
Don't see it if if you don't know the story would be a little confusing. also I thought there would be more music
See it if Over-the-top humorous take on the rock band Van Halen told through a MTV VJ narrator with gender role reversal, outrageous costumes & hair
Don't see it if you want something serious, want Van Halen's music (only a few snippets) & don't want something that can seem like an extended skit Read more
See it if You enjoy a unique story about the pop scene performed by an all female cast. Very cleverly performed and unexpectedly interesting & clever.
Don't see it if You don't care anything about Eddie Van Halen & David Lee Roth's shenanigans or don't know about their talents and music.
Critic Reviews (18)
"Staat's storytelling gimmick of using that MTV narrator works well to make her semi-biographical story quite colorful and amusing...Bordelon's moves us smoothly through the band's back story...These positives notwithstanding...Unless you love this band as much as Staats does, ‘Eddie and Dave’ is too imperfect...Even at just 90 minutes, it feels...too long. The only real reason to ignore my reservations and enjoy it is the novelty of the gender switching casting.”
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“Staats has fun with her telling of the band’s journey, and she can’t be bothered with accuracy...The performances are campy and over-the-top...The use of drag heightens the camp...and reminds us we’re not supposed to get too emotionally involved...Bordelon maintains a sense of Brechtian alienation throughout the piece, which reminds us to laugh, have fun, and not take anything too seriously...Those who prefer sincerity and pathos over camp might leave wanting more.”
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“Perhaps Staats is into minimalism. Maybe that is why only first names...are used in the title of this quasi bio satire..Maybe that is why we hear only brief riffs of their greatest hits...And maybe that is why the play’s 37 short scenes go fleeting by with so few laughs, so little gravitas and virtually no variance in tone...Under uninspired...direction...This would-be rock and roll bad boy of a show has nowhere to run.”
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“The story is familiar...except Staats sparks it up by flipping the gender dynamic...Staats’ dialogue lampoons the bro-babble of rich, entitled white men while also keeping the band in a loving embrace...Parts of Staats’ script are amusing, though most of the jokes didn’t land...but when the play...speaks about the experience of fandom, about aligning life experiences with what you were listening to at the time, it stretches beyond its comedic confines and becomes something profound.”
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“When a production exhibits a little gender bending, there should be a valid explanation...In the case of ‘Eddie and Dave’...It seems to be purely for fun, adding a bit of desperately needed humor to the banal script...It is not a satire and it is not funny enough to be a spoof...The cast does what it can with the material...The result is somewhat of an overlong television comedy sketch that does not include any music from the legendary rock and roll band Van Halen.”
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“A laughter-deprived, semi-musical biodrama…Its strings fray, though, when it's performed…in the aggressively pumped-up manner of a cartoon-like spoof, now and then palely reminiscent of…'This Is Spinal Tap.'…Of the play's principal liberties, we can begin with its use of only three members of the quartet…Even more questionable…is Staats's choice of having all but one character played by women. The broad performances are engaging only up to a point, and it's one that comes very soon.”
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“Staats’ new bio-comedy, ‘Eddie and Dave’, makes spectacular use of its female actors in male roles...Under Bordelon’s super-sharp direction. They startle us by being the little boy that is at the heart of every rock-and-roll star...These female actors also have that androgynous thing down pat...Staats hasn’t found quite the right ending for ‘Eddie and Dave’. The comedy and the chaos tend to dribble off in the last 10 minutes of this 90-minute play.”
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"Why are the show makers telling me this story? I haven’t been able to figure out the answer to that question...Little more than a shallow 'Behind the Music'-style account of the drugs, sex and rock and roll that undid the partnership between Eddie Van Halen...and David Lee Roth...The thing that really sets 'Eddie and Dave' apart from the recent rash of rock biographies around is that all the male characters are portrayed by women...A comedy skit that had overstayed its welcome."
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