Phalaris's Bull: Solving the Riddle of the Great Big World NYC Reviews and Tickets

50%

(5 Reviews)

Positive

60%

Mixed

Negative

40%

Members say

Entertaining, Must see, Absorbing, Delightful, Enchanting

About the Show

Great Big World LLC presents a one-of-a kind theatrical event – neither play nor lecture – staged to reflect Steven Friedman’s prismatic and eclectic vision of the world.

Harvard-educated, molecular biologist, visual artist, and provocative underground philosopher, Steven Friedman has the answers to life’s big questions. This play uses personal narrative, poetry, art and science to tell the story of a contemporary philosopher's quest to fulfill Einstein's ambition 'to solve the riddle of the great, big world.' Friedman offers a solution to the world’s pain – a philosophy based on Kierkegaard’s story in which an ancient torture device, Phalaris’s Bull, turned the terrible sounds of pain into music. To create is to enter Phalaris’s Bull, and our pain becomes beauty.

Member Reviews (5)

Performance so egotistical it borders on self-satire

See it if you enjoy an interesting set and hearing an interesting life story narrated by a single person

Don't see it if you don't like narrator spouting mindless aphorisms wrapped up in philosophical language or self-promoting story that is actually sad

100

Absorbing, Clever, Delightful, Enchanting, Entertaining

See it if You want to see an amazing show with enchanting, beautiful music.

Don't see it if You are crazy & don't like musicals.

Cliched, Dated, Insipid, Excruciating, Slow

See it if you don't value your own time

Don't see it if you want to avoid another trite, condescending and contrived self-important white guy who thinks his little world reflects the rest us.

Enchanting, Must see, Epic

See it if You love music, suspense, mystery, romance

Don't see it if There is no reason not to see it

Delightful, Absorbing, Entertaining, Great staging, Must see

See it if You love classic theatre and want to sing your way home.

Don't see it if Your looking for avant garde.

Critic Reviews (7)

"Friedman seeks to mix philosophical musings and autobiographical vignettes into a brainy, insightful theater. He succeeds only intermittently...It’s annoying, and the other details that he shares are pretty generic, so latching onto him as a sympathetic character is difficult. Also not helping Mr. Friedman’s likability is that he’s a wooden performer, awkward in the style of bad community theater...Mr. Friedman ultimately does have something to say, even if it’s said awkwardly."
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"The production is big on visual and aural distractions designed to enliven the windy generalities of Friedman's text...Whether you take Friedman as a genuinely deep mind, a classic American eccentric in the Bronson Alcott mode, or a skilled purveyor of snake oil, 'Phalaris' Bull' is a one-of-a-kind experience. For all the rampant egoism on display, it's possible to feel a little sad for him."
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"The 80-minute evening is as close as you're likely to ever come to receiving an exclusive tour of something that could be considered a great mind...Director David Schweizer has done nothing to tone down the evening's pretensions and elicit Friedman's underlying humanity. If anything, Friedman's listless, directionless movement across, behind, through, and even up the asymmetrical mindscape set makes it more difficult, not less, to follow him (figuratively and literally)."
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"This solo show is as alien to the universe of professional theater as Chewbacca would be in Scranton. That stage set, with its array of windows, nooks, compartments, and sliding panels, is far and away the most memorable thing about 'Phalaris's Bull'…From the moment the play begins, the design team is on overdrive, doing its best to distract attention from all that's dull and vainglorious about the script."
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"'Phalaris’s Bull' Worst Play of 2015...This one-man show is written and performed by the narcissistic Friedman who can neither act, nor mime the direction he has been given. I actually pity this director who must have been pulling his hair out. With grandiose gestures and condescending vocals, this is a vanity piece about this ignoramus’s life."
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"'Phalaris’s Bull' claims to be 'solving the riddle of the great big world.' In the process of trying to understand what he’s saying, that may, or may not happen. And you may, or may not, stay awake through the 80 nonstop minutes of his dazzling tour de talk...Not everybody’s cup of tea, that kind of thinky-thinky talk. If you don’t want to stretch your mind, then 'Phalaris’s Bull' is not for you. If you do, it can be deeply rewarding, provoking lots of thought." "
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"There are more answers than questions in Steven Friedman's one-man show...The most personal moments come when he talks about the dissolution of his marriage, but even then it feels like he's figured it out, and we never see the struggle that's at the heart of good theater...he never makes himself sufficiently vulnerable to let us witness that transformation. Instead we get hollow aphorisms."
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