The Damned

See it if big dramatic production with over-the-top amazing staging. Great performances. Impressive & very creative.

Don't see it if Confusing and at points unclear story. Watching the movie would have helped a lot especially with the very fast English supertitles.

Also 2hr 20min, no intermission (not counting the 5min grace period). Could have been 2hrs... Read more Read less

See it if You're a fan of Van Hove's work - Very inventive direction and staging. Dark and Heavy story w/ excellent performances.

Don't see it if See the movie first. Story can behard to follow due to Simultaneously reading supertitles, watching the screens + actors on stage.

See it if Great acting as well as directing. If you want to see a show about the deepest darkest places.

Don't see it if Nudity, very violent very dark. A very deep moving piece. It gets scattered at different points. Covers sex addiction, greed and nazis.

See it if Macbeth in Nazi Germany. Potential family heirs to a steel company vie for power and murder each other. Sensational staging & sound design.

Don't see it if Intrigue driven plot with shallow characters. Melodrama. Excessive male nudity. Graphic pedophilia. Drunken nude gay orgy.

See it if to witness van Hove's epic, genre-busting adaptation of Visconti's Nazi Germany family drama about greed, loyalty & self-preservation.

Don't see it if you aren't prepared for relentless cruelty, unsettling nakedness & the indictment of our collective complicity in the bankruptcy of morality

See it if you are someone who is interested in the possibilities of contemporary staging.

Don't see it if you'd like an esthetic treatment of the early 3rd Reich to also provide an ethical frame within which to contemplate the staging's beauties.

Also Interested in contemporary staging? See Ivo Van Hove’s stage adaptation of Viconti’s 1969 film, “The Damned.” Here the assured actors of Comédie-Française take all the time they need—& all the space, & it’s huge. An empty wooden floor constitutes a good deal of the enormous “stage” at Park Avenue Armory, flanked on one side by beds to which actors retire between scenes. Long motion across the space lends everything a dreamy aspect. But it’s a nightmare, a series of graphic murders within the milieu of a rich German family that owns a steelworks just as the fatherland is rearming. Cameras weave amid the butchery, projected on a large screen behind the actors; cameras inside a line of coffins (opposite the beds) record the death throes even after death. The Times says the production’s “flames burn cold.” In the end I found the handling pathologically detached. Given no ethical framework, I could only render an esthetic verdict. The enormity of the Reich’s crimes cries for more.... Read more Read less

See it if This is long, but the story is interesting. Great acting.

Don't see it if This is not for everybody. Disturbing, Nude, violence, betrayed, power, evil, killing, WW II.

See it if You are ready to be mesmerized by Ivo van Hove, and immersed in a sensory experience about the Nazi takeover of private industry in 1933.

Don't see it if Brutality, and splits and changes in Germany’s culture in 1933, because of the insanity of a leader upset you. Family strife & pedophilia.

Also I cannot begin to describe this experience in a few paragraphs. The wealthy industrial families in Germany made choices that resonated forever, both inside and outside their businesses.
Families lived, died, went insane, joined the Nationalists, etc..
This play is based on the movie by Visconti. The sensory experiences created by van Hove and his team cannot be described, you have to see and feel them.
They will resonate within me for a long time. The horror never stopped. The ending unexpected.
No other words- read the professional critics’ reviews.
Superb actors (in French) with English subtitles. Comedie Francais... Read more Read less

See it if you are a van Hove fan or want to see the Comédie-Française or if you haven't seen the 1969 Visconti film

Don't see it if saw the film or if you find van Hove's work indulgent and overblown.

Also My advice: Rent the movie!

See it if you want to see a brilliantly produced, horrifying story of bitterness and greed within a wealthy family, leading to their own destruction.

Don't see it if cannot sit through over two hours of violence, nudity, hatred, blood letting, greed and difficulty following who is who in the story. Messy

Also The stage is very busy between super titles, stage, video and learning the cast of characters. This is sometimes overwhelming.

The coolness of Van Hove's direction works perfectly here, as cold is an understatement for the actions taking place during Hitler's rule. This includes the mass slaughter within the Nazi party as well as the massacre of so many innocents..... Read more Read less

See it if you are a van Hove fan; this is big, bold and evocative with incredible, disturbing visuals and weighty themes.

Don't see it if The show is performed entirely in French with fast moving subtitles, a cast of 3 dozen and incest, molestation, buckets of blood, coffins..

See it if you adore Ivo's directorial work. This is not to be missed. A truly jaw-dropping, reflective + relevant piece that resonates strongly today.

Don't see it if you're triggered by intense violence, guns, nudity, and anything remotely shocking you could think of in connection to WWII era Germany

See it if you like smart original theater, especially in this case, a production that takes full advantage of the awesome space of the armory.

Don't see it if you believe that supporting evil is ever okay especially if "you don't have a choice".

See it if a play about a family steel dynasty in the early days of Nazis with the nonstop horrors staged masterfully; very unique & gripping scenes

Don't see it if very, very many horrifying scenes including - a blood bath & those involving coffins (occupied) and an extremely disturbing final scene

Also The play is in French with subtitles and also with a video display in the background - sometimes of closeup of the action on the 'stage' & sometimes of archival footage of Nazi Germany. So there is much going on.
There was a homosexual element to the nude blood bath scene. It has some basis in fact in the purge of the Nazi SA. The staging captured the horror in such a unique (artsy maybe) way.
The audience members are occasionally portrayed as participants (witnesses) as the camera pans over us and at the end........ Read more Read less

See it if you admire van Hove's incredible vision and his ability to create stunning spectacles.

Don't see it if violence, bloodshed, nudity and raw emotionalism offend you. This is a wild (and long) ride, but well worth the trip.

See it if Chilling production beautifully done in great locale. The action spans the breadth of the Drill Hall. The performances are riveting.

Don't see it if Violent images are upsetting to you. Production utilizes supertitles, loud music,which could be off putting to some people

See it if you like the Visconti film (I didn't); like von Hove (I do); like plays in French; prize visual excellence above narrative momentum.

Don't see it if You don't want to be excruciated by a Greek-tragedy-inflected (incest & all) Holocaust narrative. IVH calls it a "Ritual of Evil"

Also See the film first. Even though IVH did not rewatch it, and just assembled this play from the screenplay, there are some crucial moments that may not register if you aren't aware what's being staged. However, the subtitles on the characters first appearances actually make it easier to follow in some ways than the film.

There are some indelible moments in the play: the SA homoerotic beer; the ashes; the ending; and the tarring and feathering of the matriarch filmed in inverted color. But I'm not sure the narrative thrust of the script justifies these gorgeous moments. Much of the action is dull or repellent.... Read more Read less

See it if Ivo van Hove ... production, production, production. Comédie- Française is masterful. Devastating and dangerous.

Don't see it if French language of German family/story can confuse...look past.

See it if Brilliant Ivo can Hove staging of Visconte’s The Damned in masterful intensely staged and acted brutality and depravity of rise of Nazism

Don't see it if It is like nothing you have ever seen especially the Night of the Long Knives - brilliant and horrifying

See it if You want to see a master director (Ivo Van Hove) use his considerable skills to tell a horrifying tale in exquisite ways.

Don't see it if You don’t like dark themes.

Also This is a visually stunning production with an outstanding French cast that is unquestionably one of the theatrical highlights of the year.... Read more Read less

See it if You like great acting, writing, staging, that is intense, and disturbing.

Don't see it if You are bothered by nudity and do not like to see any violence.

See it if You like theater raw, like to be challenged, don’t mind subtitles, are challenged by actors stripping themselves bare (literal/figurative).

Don't see it if You’re offended by violence, nudity, the story Nazi Germany, need linear storytelling, like staging, hate multimedia, or want a happy show.

Also This is von Hove at his best/worst, depending on how you like him. This was difficult to watch at times, left me speechless at the end, and held this huge space spellbound for 2+ hours. It’s not a show for everyone, but what a show!... Read more Read less

See it if you want to see a new frontier in theatrical staging.

Don't see it if you are offended by excessive nudity and violence.

See it if Brilliantly theatrical, with creative use of video, seamlessly meshing live action with recording, wonderful use of the vast Armory space.

Don't see it if It's got violence, nudity, perversion, a host of nasty characters,real child actors in it's portrayal of pedophilia and it's in French.

Also I was very impressed with van Hove''s dramatizing the screenplay from the 1969 movie about the downfall of a German family and the rise of the Nazis. But I'm not sure that this is a story that needed retelling. The brilliant naked, beer swilling orgy that preceded the Night of the Long Knives (the massacre of the Nazi SA) was off-set for me by the real discomfort of using child actors in the scenes that portrayed the lead character's pedophilia. The use of coffins and cameras within them demonstrating the torment of the dead was most effective. The use of video in the immensity of the Armory gave the drama an added intimacy and large screen projection underscored the actions but the need for subtitles was distracting and made the drama less melodramatic than it actually was.Turning those same cameras on the audience to show us our own involvement in this horror show was chilling. Or was it just another flashy effect?
On and on...overall, an interesting evening at the theater.... Read more Read less

See it if This is, like his other works, a dissociated approach to drama. The effect is alienating and assaultive but effective in this case

Don't see it if you are looking for a warm and fuzzy experience or are put off by violence, nudity and a crazyness that guides this descent into hell