"These meta-theatrical tangles and the self-conscious musing are the least interesting parts of this frequently involving play. Mr. Jacobson has a habit of stating his themes too baldly and the ending is a blunder...Better than this writerly game-playing are the opportunities the script affords the fine actors to switch from one role to the next. The performances are precise, if exaggerated. And sometimes even moving."
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"I found most of the meta-shenanigans annoying and, oddly, overliteral. Because the 1914 betrayals and seductions were, on the other hand, quite touching, I just kept wishing Jacobsen had stuck with that, and left his Stoppard pretentions at the stage door. But apparently the 21st-century way is self-gratification."
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"The script is clever and self-aware, not as a means to be cute or wink at the audience, but always in service to the story...'The Twentieth-Century Way' matches its formal rigor with thought-provoking content...The 'Twentieth-Century Way' raises all of these issues without beating you over the head with them, wrapping it all in an immensely enjoyable package."
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"'The Twentieth-Century Way' is a potentially engrossing but somewhat pretentious work...The story’s focus gets diffused in the pyrotechnics of its performance... Straight or gay, it’s hard to follow an ambiguous discussion when the speakers’ private parts are publicly staring you in the face."
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"Truth to tell, I found the drama rough going as one test followed another followed another. The action seems increasingly pretentious as the 90 minutes unfold. That's especially so when, for reasons I can't explain, Brown and Warren get to stripping not only their period outfits but also get to stripping their identities."
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"There are just too many theatrical metaphors embedded in this piece of metatheatre. The two fine actors work hard to bring the play to life, but the only real characters they play that elicit any feeling are the victims of entrapment. The two actors they play throughout are devices, not characters...A disappointment, I'm afraid. "
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"At times the format seems forced, yielding old thesp/young hotshot guff. But hang in there, for the approach yields richer dividends than would a straightforward semidocumentary. As the men fall in and out of character, Jacobson explores deeper questions inspired by these sad events, including the lengths to which a thesp will go to get cast, and the blurring of identity between actor and role."
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"Employing nudity and frank descriptions of taboo practices at the dawn of the previous century, the piece, under Michael Michetti's precise staging, takes a physical and metaphysical plunge into sexuality, the nature of identity, and moral compromises made in the pursuit of ambition."
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