Skinnamarink NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (8)
See it if you want to see a wonderful, absurdist satire on learning by rote, childhood indoctrination & the effect of early grade school primers.
Don't see it if u have a peanut allergy; ur completely unfamiliar with McGuffey Readers [still popular in homeschooling, btw!]; u want traditional theater.
See it if Little Lord's devised theatre piece views education as a devise for control & subjugation rather than knowledge Adroit cast keeps it engaged
Don't see it if Messy, dense & often puzzling it's still involving & questioning Themes glimmer then vanish Personal relations fall prey to indoctrination
Critic Reviews (7)
"Many contemporary plays feel like live audition reels for television...This one does not, and proudly flies a purely theatrical freak flag...The show constantly plays off the double meaning of the word 'instruction'...Little Lord, which describes its shows as 'junk spectaculars,' practices an open-source approach...These disparate borrowings are integrated into a bewildering whole that is much tighter than Little Lord’s chaotically sprawling previous production."
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"For about 75 delightfully repulsive minutes, you’ll regret your childhood. Depending on how close the actors get to your row, you may regret the entire concept of children...I don’t want to oversell its qualities: It’s a daffy show. But the downtown ensemble Little Lord tends to make the kind of seeming silliness that worms into your brain and comes out to play long after recess is over."
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“’Skinnamarink’ is an absurdist study in indoctrination...Initially childish and playful, the amusing piece gradually turns sinister...The absence of a storyline and the abstract doings of this smart and slyly disturbing work are likely to disconcert viewers who prefer their theater conventional. Theatergoers willing to take an experimental journey will be impressed by the acute performances...even as they later ponder the unsettling significance of ‘Skinnamarink.’”
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"'Skinnamarink' is not for everyone; the wild, stylized nature of Little Lord’s work is distinctive and maybe profound...After a while spent with these lessons, it isn’t entirely clear what they’re meant to be teaching, but it does seem like these students are constantly wrong...Even if the peanuttiness of 'Skinnamarink' isn’t quite your taste, it will likely leave you feelin’ some kind of way about the evolution of education in the States."
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"What makes 'Skinnamarink' work so effectively is the commitment to sending up childhood memories of school while commenting on universal brainwashing...Absurdist theater and very, very funny. The entire cast is deadly serious in performing these increasingly silly and manic intervals...The polish exhibited throughout this 75 minute comedy has to be credited to Michael Levinton...It’s ritualistic, symbolic, idiotic and smart...It’s a hilarious blast of brightly vivid creativity."
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"The artists creating it and watching it are no doubt in agreement about the ridiculousness of the educational system, and this consensus plays to its strength and weakness in its exposition of the obvious...About as irreverent and nostalgic as a string of Peanuts comics, but with a larger dose of irony...It’s absurdism, but with a square-ness that keeps it within certain bounds. The commitment to this style is certainly admirable...But it makes for a sort of monotony."
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"With great silliness, the show depicts the ridiculous potential of performative learning...The text is easy to laugh at from the vantage point of our cozy, atheistic, hyperlinked twenty-first century...There’s an earnestness in the language too, goofy as it is...Everything theater about childhood should be: nostalgic, embarrassing, unpredictable, and bizarre."
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