Electronic City (2019) NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (10)
See it if you like creative projections and lighting and an energetic cast. There is quite a bit of activity that keeps you dazzled with good sound.
Don't see it if you want a straight-forward story. While visually appealing there was no real story I could pick up as the action jumped around - confusing.
See it if for the originality used to explore alienation caused by social homogenization expressed by projections, bold physical movements and chants
Don't see it if you need a lot of plot. There is some but it is hard to follow.
See it if you can see the black humor in absurd, quirky theater that deals with dehumanization in our digital world; appreciate creative video effects
Don't see it if you want a traditional play following an always coherent train of thought & are not an adventurous theater patron Read more
See it if You can appreciate great lighting with a somewhat confusing avant-garde presentation.
Don't see it if You expect a straight easily understandable plot or story.
See it if Nicely choreographed, disciplined, "avant-garde modernism." Enthusiastic precision performances.
Don't see it if This is the kind of thing you'll like if you like this kind of thing. Somewhat self-indulgent and impenetrable.
See it if you like experimental theater about technology and society; are fine with varying levels of acting (some good, some OK, some not so great)
Don't see it if you want something polished and linear/straight-forward; if the term "avant-garde" makes you cringe
See it if you like experimental theater w/ set design mostly using lighting & visual projections. The staging is ok but the narrative/plot is unclear.
Don't see it if you do not like avante garde theater & small venues/tight spaces. The material seems profound-I got lost in the verbal & choreo translation.
See it if you like European theatre that doesn't explain everything to you and you love physical work and visual work w/great ensemble work! Stunning!
Don't see it if you don't want to be thrilled by the great acting, language, direction, a F**K Opera, sex, a woman with a vacuum as an arm, amazing images!
Critic Reviews (5)
"As walls of tweets, texts, Instagram posts and WhatsApp status updates divide rather than connect us, we are no longer consumers of technology; technology consumes us...On one level, 'Electronic City' may seem like a gamified Metropolis for millennials; lyrics quoted from The Eurythmics seem almost nostalgic. But anyone who has lost their phone...will identify with the feeling that sometimes, even with geolocation, we're all still lost."
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"'Electronic City' successfully evokes the sensory overload its characters experience, making the few quiet and genuine moments poignant...Adapter/director Ildiko Nemeth sacrifices clarity in storytelling for style...Certainly, a commentary on the evils of global capitalism, and just how helpless individuals are before such a force, is extremely relevant. And perhaps 'Electronic City' is meant to be confusing—maybe the goal is to mirror the whirlpool of modern life."
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“Since its premiere in 2003, ‘Electronic City’ by Falk Richter has been translated into 40 languages, and I wonder if it makes sense in any of them...This show is determined to show how disconnected and alienated we all are in the digital world. However, without exploring social media's role in making connections, it's even harder to extract meaning from an already abstract production…There's an affordable hostel upstairs if you and your date wish to redeem your evening.”
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"Nemeth draws on her global touring experience as a member of the R.S. 9 Theatre Company from Budapest. The chorus divides unspecified spoken text among them, engaging in slapstick, breaking the fourth wall, and trading narration in bleak machine gun-style poetry...'Electronic City' travels through genre at high speed, echoing one of its many spoken truths: 'Flexibility has become the prescribed pattern of behavior, the new type of amnesia, the loss of a sense of history.'”
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"Ildiko Nemeth, the award-winning director, puts high energy life into Richter's mad display of lives gone wild under the control of digital forces...It's modern love with broad comedy and a bit of pain...A chorus of consciousness...keep the action moving in poetry and movement...Nemeth's team once again presents winning theater on a small stage with big ideas and action. Go see it.”
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