"While one piece, a comedy, drums up a few laughs, it’s the tragedy that packs the real power here...The plot of 'Reckless' is melodramatic, the ending blunt. But the intensity of the young writer is palpable...'Now I Ask You'...the tone is harmless, but there’s no getting around the fact that this 90-minute play wears out its welcome before the halfway mark...Though the piece is overwritten, you wouldn’t know it from the dedicated cast...Most everything else here is impressive, too."
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“‘O’Neill (Unexpected)’ lives up to its name and Metropolitan Playhouse’s mission to explore the American theatrical heritage by ‘discovering where we come from to better know who we are.’ While not in any way lost masterpieces, ‘Recklessness’ and ‘Now I Ask You’ are not only stage-worthy but prove to be vastly entertaining short plays. The non-traditional casting adds another level to the evening’s piquancy.”
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“To analyze these plays - even in the moment as they’re being performed - is a bit of an exercise in hopeful hindsight bias. It is impossible to not search for the early dramatic strengths of a playwright who would develop into arguably the greatest in American history. Many of the constructs of ‘Recklessness’ and ‘Now I Ask You’ come off as hackneyed or unnatural, but one thing is clear: O’Neill always had an ear for dynamic actor’s dialogue.”
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"These two one-acts, directed by company artistic director Alex Roe with sly bemusement, were written some time before the playwright won the first Pulitzer Prize...The longer entry dates from 1916 and is unexpected not only because so much of the early, feeling-his-way O’Neill is rarely revived but because it’s—guess what!—a comedy...The clever curtain raiser is the 1913 'Recklessness,' a melodrama."
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"Two early plays by Eugene O’Neill–one really works, one not so much...It’s something of a revelation to watch the second and better of these two plays, ‘Now I Ask You,’ which sounds for all the world like it might have been written by George Bernard Shaw…The well acted and directed play is full of innuendo and wit…The act/react ratio couldn’t be better. Physical acting is as specific as costuming...The evening’s first play, 'Recklessness' teeters at the brink of melodrama."
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"They are stories of marriage and its myriad complications but of course, through the pen of O’Neill, they escape any tawdry melodrama...As Lucy, Emily Bennett is convincingly flighty and wide-eyed...Brava to Kim Yancy-Moore as Mary Ashleigh. She achieves that most-desired quality in acting of naturalness...She fully embodies Mary’s quiet and wily independence...Two great plays, excellent direction and acting."
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