Nice Fish NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (63)
See it if Creative dialogue driven "mise en scene" poetic drama. Mark Rylance... amazing
Don't see it if You need a lot of action.
See it if you're looking for something different
Don't see it if you're big on plot
See it if you don't mind being confused at times if the payoff is funny, thoughtful moments delivered by an exceptional cast
Don't see it if prose poetry is too off-putting for you, you can't tolerate mundane or confusing moments
See it if you like Mark Rylance - he is such a delight on this stage
Don't see it if If you're looking for something a little more serious - this was cute and funny
See it if you'll enjoy quirky & entertaining musings on the meaning of life written by the same guy who wrote Mark Rylance's Tony acceptance speeches.
Don't see it if the absence of plot and character development is a deal breaker, despite the show's other charms.
See it if Are a Mark Rylance fan, a man who is a chameleon brilliant actor. Quirky, funny engaging
Don't see it if don't like to think at the theater
See it if You like poetry (and philosophy) in your theatre. You like Rylance. You like Beckett and Theatre of the Absurd. You are into existentialism?
Don't see it if You want clarity and action in your theatre.
See it if you like absurdist comedies. This is Waiting For Godot On Ice with lots of insights into Life (capital "L" intended).
Don't see it if you only like shows with a plot. This has almost no story arc, but it does make you think and laugh.
Critic Reviews (31)
"The problem with the play is not all that different from anything else built from pre-existing material: the poems, despite their humorous and meditative qualities, do not offer the narrative sustenance or characterization to support a 95-minute piece of theater, leaving it fragmented, uneventful and generally unsatisfying...Rylance is a wonderfully mercurial and inventive actor...'Nice Fish' is essentially 'Waiting for Godot' on a frozen lake."
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"Jenkins' prose poems are an idiosyncratic blend of comedy and wonder...as a full-length theatrical experience, these pithy observations delivered in a quirky manner quickly become tedious...Director Claire van Kampen has crafted a whimsical production...Unfortunately, the dreamy, meditative tone of 'Nice Fish' is more likely to lull you into a gentle slumber than cause your ears to perk up in recognition of an artfully phrased truth."
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"Rylance has given us so many magnificent things that I guess we should allow him his little indulgences, but your ability to enjoy his latest vehicle will depend on your tolerance for a plotless evening of Upper Midwestern wryness...'Nice Fish' completes its journey from amusing to bemusing to interminable...At least Claire van Kampen's direction maintains a light touch, and the design credits are first rate...Passable entertainment, I guess."
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"This proves to be a charming and witty – though lighthearted – evening based on Jenkins’ wise and knowing prose poems...'Nice Fish' by Mark Rylance and Louis Jenkins is an entertaining showcase for the poet’s work and gives Rylance a refreshing comic turn in a lighter vein that we usually see him. The physical vaudeville and the stage picture are particularly memorable. Its clever and droll witticisms may not teach you anything new, but will prove diverting and worth the reminder."
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"A charming, eccentric ninety-minute existential meditation on fishing, friendship, and life, co-authored by Rylance and Jenkins...'Nice Fish' bears a startling resemblance to Beckett’s 'Waiting for Godot'...Thanks to Rylance’s indomitable comedic spirit and Jenkins’s poetic words, 'Nice Fish' offers a happier world view than Beckett’s – one that may send you up north to try ice-fishing yourself."
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"A charmingly sweet play brought to us by the brilliant and fun mind of Mark Rylance and masterfully simple poetry of Louis Jenkins is coming to us in a beautifully realized production...It truly is exceptional to watch these wonderful actors having such fun, and feeling the joy of playing with these amazing words and works of poetry."
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"In adapting Jenkins’ poems for the stage, Rylance and Jenkins have deftly translated all of their original comedy and tenderness...Although at times the dialogue is confusing and feels recited, there is a beauty in the way that the theme of life and the living of it emerges...It is a far-reaching thing to try and treat a subject as grand as life itself in this way, but under the careful direction of van Kampen, 'Nice Fish' seems to have gone a long way towards achieving it."
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"Claire van Kampen directs with a playful and appealing touch, favoring abrupt blackouts as a mode of comedy and encouraging the actors to attack the material lightly...The whole may not add up to much more than a gently absurdist evocation of mood...Still, there are few greater joys in the contemporary theater than watching Rylance do his wide-eyed, thick-voiced thing."
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