Seen / By Everyone NYC Reviews and Tickets

69%

(19 Reviews)

Positive

63%

Mixed

37%

Negative

Members say

Thought-provoking, Clever, Relevant, Absorbing, Ambitious

About the Show

HERE presents arts collective Five On A Match's exploration of the 21st-century experience of mourning and moving on in the digital age.

Cat videos, photos of ultrasounds, proclamations of loneliness, and the endless gloating of lives well-lived coexist with heartfelt final goodbyes to, now, ghosts in the machine. What does it mean to live, die, grieve, and keep living in the era of (over)sharing? Set in a karaoke bar, this theatrical collage serves up multiple story lines with text crafted from real-life social media posts.

Member Reviews (19)

Relevant, Thought-provoking, Opaque, Uneven, Experimental

See it if you like experimental theater and you're interested in the effect social media has on our lives and relationships.

Don't see it if you need a clear narrative, and to be able to follow along moment to moment.

Ambitious, Clever, Absorbing

See it if you like to see a nontraditional, modern, relevant play about human connections through social network.Humorous, sad, and full of ambiguity

Don't see it if you are looking for a light, simple, and predictable performance.

Critic Reviews (7)

"The show too often feels swamped by the surfeit and shallowness of its source material…The production is largely unable to breathe life into snippets of texts written — quickly, sloppily, breezily — in the chill isolation of cyberspace. Put into people’s mouths, the words tend to come across as that much more distant…The performance can feel like reading a Twitter feed: So many voices, so many words, but rarely a thought of much consequence or meaning."
Read more

"An emotionally powerful portrait of love and loss, and of individuals coming to grips with both…The production is blessed with a pitch-perfect cast...They have done an excellent job of developing their characters out of the raw material of messaging sites…Everything about the production works because everything has been carefully planned...Rises above its non-linear performance roots to tell an emotionally honest and compelling story that sticks in the mind long after viewing it."
Read more

“In theory, an excellent exercise in verbatim theatre. In reality… a mess. There’s no coherent through line, beyond vague attempts at a theme and a symbolic character arc...What occurs, then, is an array of scenes that would be bewildering if they weren’t so boring. Occasional moments of poignancy are created, and the tech aspect of the show is gorgeous, but as an experience for an audience, it’s an awful slog.”
Read more

"Although the production feels fragmented—it’s nonlinear in both story line and dialogue—it does resonate...Without the development of characterization and a story line, however, it’s hard to get a sense of who these characters are...The experience of watching 'Seen/By Everyone' can be disorienting if you’re not willing to leave your typical theatergoing road map of expectations behind. In the end, it offers a thought-provoking experience."
Read more

"This is not a perfect production...The delineation of the assorted dimensions is often unclear, as far as what triggers the change, if anything, and whether the characters are aware of the distinctions and the roles they play in them...However, whether these are purposeful choices or accidents, they do not dilute the validity and efficacy of the show’s journey. The questions raised about life, love, and death are made easier to digest when couched in the fun theatricality of this production."
Read more

"The format of 'Seen/By Everyone' takes a little while to get into, but once you’ve settled into the futuristic digital world of the play, it’s absolutely intriguing...Kristin Marting’s direction makes great use of the space...The ensemble is a gorgeous mix of people of all shapes and sizes that give a voice to all the exclamation points and sad face emojis we read every day...The true impact of 'Seen/By Everyone' comes from seeing real emotions attached to typed sentences we read daily."
Read more

For a previous production

"Like a bad status update, Five on a Match's social-media meditation uses a lot of words to say not much at all...The ten 'characters' who populate the show aren't so much people as mouthpieces through which the detritus of Twitter and Facebook flows...Total self-involvement is not dramatically engaging. The already gimmicky premise is further bogged down by Kristin Marting's portentous direction...Audiences deserve more curating than 'Seen / By Everyone' provides."
Read more