Mud/Drowning

See it if you’d like to see fine productions of 2 great plays from the greatest playwright the Off-off-B’way movement produced.

Don't see it if you are looking for a traditional drama—though there is plenty of non-traditional drama in each play.

Also When María Irene Fornés died 16 months ago, she was our greatest living playwright, though, because a slow-moving progressive illness had been draining her of her full faculties, she’d written no new plays this century. “Mud,” a short, gut-wrenching, full-length play & “Drowning,” the most moving 10-minute play I know, show Fornés at her best & most “typical”. Though she was a notorious formal chameleon, all her work is blunt, surprising, sharply observed & touching though never sentimental. These productions reunite veteran director JoAnne Akalaitis & composer Phil Glass; the result is breathtaking, a jolt to the heart & to expectations. In “Mud” the reading of the stage directions makes some common actions (a kiss) strange again & holds up the brutal actions for clearer observation—though the reader’s perkiness evoked a cheap laugh a few times. In “Drowning” the final devastating line seemed a bit lost. Neither quibble detracted much from a truly haunting, haunted theater event.... Read more Read less

See it if you are comfortable with very off-off broadway and enjoy a double bill, one opera and one more a table reading

Don't see it if you prefer upbeat straight up, linear, literal stories/acting

See it if you want to see a beautiful production of 2 fascinating plays

Don't see it if you only like conventional stagings of conventional plays

See it if These 2 plays by Irene Fornes are beautifully realized with a minimum of props and sets letting the actors really shine.

Don't see it if you hate theater or Philip Glass adaptions.