Homos, or Everyone in America

"This fascinating and fearless new play brims with universally recognizable emotions, even if they are dressed up in very culturally specific drag...With an eye for nuance and an ear for urban vernacular, Seavey explores the dynamics of modern gay life...The proximity of exposition to climax allows for some rather cruel foreshadowing...Thanks to airtight staging by director Mike Donahue, the play keeps it up until the very end...Even if we get lost, we always find our way back." Full Review

"A daringly frank, funny and affecting new play...The zesty writing, which is often choppy and fragmented but always natural, is given an energizing boost by the superb performances...The play’s complex structure can be a little jarring at first...May make audiences with no taste for the detailed discussion of gay sex—or any sex, for that matter—uncomfortable...But set aside the bedroom talk...and the play is fundamentally about the problems inherent in any romantic relationship." Full Review

"It might seem as if the creative team has put up barriers between the audience and the story...But as it turns out, the experiments in form, language and design do not get in the way of appreciating what’s strongest about the play: The central relationship is believable, and engrossing. This is in large measure because Michael Urie and Robin De Jesús are terrific actors, and also because the playwright is bluntly honest in exploring the range of emotions involved in any relationship." Full Review

“‘Homos, Or Everyone in America’ is, for the most part, funny, touching, thoughtful, and pertinent...Helping greatly to make the essentially familiar situations theatrically viable is Seavey’s distinctive gift for capturing the natural flow of conversation (much of it comically profane), with unfinished sentences broken into brief phrases that leave thoughts incompletely expressed, or that weave in and out in fragmented shards with the similarly splintered sentences of someone else.” Full Review

"Gay equality in America is not a new topic in theater, but it’s brought to new intensity by playwright Jordan Seavey...The writing is laden with much wry humor...Urie maintains his boyish engaging charm...De Jesús, an equally fine actor, raises our compassion quotient. The writing style is fast, furious and frantic; scenes moving back and forth in time, somewhat confusing. The director, Mike Donahue, uses the small space to its max, which heightens the impact." Full Review

"‘Homos’ tracks a relationship in almost Cubist fashion, taking the key moments in a gay love affair, scrambling them, and presenting them to us in tantalizing fragments…Under the direction of Mike Donahue, both actors nail their roles, leaping from one emotional landscape to another with ease…Years from now, if someone wants to know what it was like to be young, gay, and in love in the first years of the 21st century, 'Homos' will offer a most revealing glimpse." Full Review

"The space and the play are a match made in heaven...The script does need some editing...Seavey does a magnificent job of creating two whole, rounded individuals, using sparse, overlapping dialog. And both Urie and De Jesús do a masterful job...Because of the structure of the play, we are forced to absorb and feel, and importantly, ultimately, identify before judging...We get an emotional investment in the unfolding relationship that we wouldn’t have otherwise received." Full Review

"This structure has the benefit, at least for a while, of keeping you attentively confused, as you try to figure out what is happening and when. Mike Donahue’s staging adds to disorientation...Affecting moments emerge. Urie and De Jesús, two of the city’s most charming actors, don’t just twinkle but spark...But there’s a lot more going on in 'Homos'—in some ways, too much...Although Seavey offers plenty of sharp reflections, the plot sometimes gets lost in the maze of broken mirrors." Full Review

"Jordan Seavey’s new play presents a lot of problems. First, there’s that title...Then there’s the staging...Then there's the tricky sequencing: the story is told in fragments that move backward and forward in time...Jumbling the timeline does not lend the material greater heft...The Writer is described at one point as a gay Woody Allen. I found him basically unsympathetic, even when played by an actor as appealing as Urie. Robin De Jesus is very strong, especially at the play's climax." Full Review

"Its concise, shortened dialogue feels so forced here that it betrays the form, contradicting its purpose to reflect the fractured nature of ordinary speech. Instead the language takes on a disjointed quality that betrays the performances of Urie and De Jesús, each moment feeling disconnected in service of the annoying poetry...Despite this, 'Homos' remains mostly agreeable until it is betrayed by an ending that feels of a different time and era...The payoff feels wrong; the drama unnecessary." Full Review

"The narrative jumps around in time, as if on shuffle or told through an addled memory...Donahue's staging has a similar sketched-in aspect...Neither character emerges as distinct, largely because, for all their disagreements, they sound so much alike...Despite Urie's fidgety charisma and the emotional openness De Jesús offers, there's something arch and artificial about Seavey's refusal to portray the more quiet, everyday moments that characterize a long-term romance." Full Review

"It’s a mostly excruciating exercise in hollow glitziness...The exploration of gay relationships is certainly dramatic material but not in this treatment...Urie and De Jesús do deserve credit for effortlessly delivering the huge amounts of verbiage. Unfortunately, their performances are as grating as the play is...'Homos, or Everyone in America' craves to make grand statements on contemporary gay life. Due to its flashiness, superficiality and self-importance, it totally fails at this." Full Review