Real NYC Reviews and Tickets

70%

(33 Reviews)

Positive

64%

Mixed

30%

Negative

Members say

Ambitious, Great acting, Absorbing, Slow, Thought-provoking

About the Show

The Tank's world premiere drama explores issues of race and gender through its story about a woman and a man living in New York, 85 years apart.

New York, 2019. Dominique, a 40-year-old married white woman, is a successful working mother who decides to take up an instrument she used to play when she was young. New York, 1934. Dominic, a 20-year-old gay immigrant, and a promising composer. After having a dream, he starts writing a fugue, and feels like he is supposed to live someone else's life. Their two stories become intertwined to a point where the viewer can't discern which one is which - neither can Dominic and Dominique.

Member Reviews (33)

Ambitious, Resonant, Great acting, Edgy

See it if A show that is abstract and deep.

Don't see it if If you want a light show. This one you must follow

Gothic, Artificial, Highly patterned, Distinctive, Mysterious

See it if you are interested in hearing a strong, particular, somewhat odd voice from Brazil.

Don't see it if you have no tolerance for the artificial or the mysterious. Read more

Critic Reviews (3)

"The supernatural scenario is a little like something one might find on an eerie episode of Alfred Hitchcock's old TV anthology. Unfortunately, it all comes off as fairly stilted and heavy-handed. This is due in part to some of the flowery language that Nogueira uses ('I have the strength of a river to drown my sobbing heart with a loving rage'). But it also has to do with Ortman's direction, which eschews realism in favor of a highly self-conscious theatricality."
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"The spooky and melodramatic aspects of the plot, and the two characters’ surreal pile-up of connections, are less engaging than the astute social observations the playwright threads throughout the piece...Nogueira, a playwright of some renown in Brazil who’s a newcomer to New York, still manages to land some astute and amusing comments about living in New York."
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“Is one story real and one imagined? Are both real?...If one does not come away with an answer, 'Real' at least shows Nogueira’s gift for poetic lyricism, and the questions he raises linger. It’s not a straightforward piece of theater, but it’s often fascinating, and it’s refreshing to find a theatrical voice as iconoclastic as Nogueira’s."
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