See it if You love film and want a smart, brilliant take on live cinema/theater/storytelling.
Don't see it if You need something more formal and traditional Read more
See it if you’d like to see smart, innovative theater that engages critical issues while pumping out some to the tastiest music you’ll hear this year.
Don't see it if you cannot tolerate forms of theater that deviate from traditional drama. Read more
See it if Mostly a light, absorbing story of two people (Middle Eastern & Latinx) with lovely music. Breaks to talk about othering of people of color.
Don't see it if Very awkward break from fantastical story w/ music to a long, slow monologue about how anti-Blackness feeds prison industrial complex sys. Read more
See it if A dark room, a man speaks in a sing-songy voice for 2 hours: almost immediately, my brain told me it was naptime.
Don't see it if Glad to see different concept for staging, tho this one didn't work for me. Most liked: the great music; the tonal breaks w/ diff actors.
See it if Music 90; story 65. Original, beautiful, expertly performed music. Social justice themes. Narrated “imagined movie" largely works.
Don't see it if Jarring, illogical sequence of telenovela style scenes. Inconsistent characters. Slow, interminable lecture on prison population.
"Staging a Movie Melodrama in ‘The Conversationalists’: Music (and eventually emotion) cuts through the alienating layers of abstraction in this new work by the musician-storytellers James & Jerome."
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..."Just Talking, But Sometimes More: 'The Conversationalists' and 'The Truth Has Changed'"
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