A Persistent Memory NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (15)
See it if You like new plays about consequences. About Africa. Learning about elephant behavior!
Don't see it if You just want to be entertained. If you don't like non linear work that makes you think.
See it if You like elephants – as fellow-creatures, as metaphor, as symbols in an interesting but unrealized drama of memory, loss, grief & redemption
Don't see it if you need to hear the actors. Inaudible voices inexcusable, a disservice to play & audience. Ending only inferred as 1st scene was unheard.
See it if you like plays that make you think about dark subjects performed by good actors.
Don't see it if You don't like plays that move around in time and explore difficult themes about memory, loss and grief.
See it if You can enjoy the occasional odd piece of theatre.
Don't see it if It seemed forever long and a bit unorganized, even though that was the point, it wasn't done terribly well.
See it if you do not mind disjointed scenes or are interested in an unusual look at human emotions as compared to elephants.
Don't see it if you like conventional quality storytelling and staging.
See it if ...I can't remember why you should see it. (I recall some decent performances & the germ of a good premise about the reliability of memory.)
Don't see it if you aren't prepared to weed through an overstuffed play, with too many storylines and too many scene shifts with too little payoff.
See it if evocative, original theatre with poignantly acted moments
Don't see it if You don't like plays that are a bit cerebral at times
See it if You wonder how shows make it to off Broadway. I became as befuddled as the main character David watching this. Non linear timing didn't help
Don't see it if Your going to want the last 2 hours of your life back. You won't get it and there will be no way to justify sitting thru this to yourself.
Critic Reviews (12)
"It's not that 'A Persistent Memory' is abstruse or hard to follow; rather, it's that the scenes don't build to a coherent portrait of the canker gnawing at David's soul…Furthermore, the script is loaded with plot danglers that never get addressed…Under Jessi D. Hill's direction, the search for a clear throughline fails and the performances are highly variable…'A Persistent Memory' is so weighed down with plot points and psychological baggage that it tips over."
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"David doesn't know when he is...Hofmann, with the purest of intentions, has let this plot point dictate the form of the entire play without a believable anchor as to its appropriateness...Ledbetter does all he can with David...but he doesn't link them all together into a single unified personality any more than the writing does...You get a similar sense of confusion from director Jessi D. Hill, as if she's attempting to wrangle a bunch of ideas that just don't add up."
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"A gripping and emotional account of the experiences that mold human memories and the lasting impact they create...Ledbetter does a convincing job of portraying a young adult who wrestles greatly with being present in life...'A Persistent Memory' is powerfully haunting and will leave audiences pondering the significance of memory in determining their life’s journey. A smart, valuable, and heartbreaking piece of theater that you won’t soon forget!"
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“The play’s development is beautifully structured by the playwright to symbolize and reveal David’s emotional growth however haphazard because it is relayed by emotional memory. This is cleverly effected by Hill’s superb direction evidenced by her choice of dramatic elements in the production design...The elements which are evocative and measure the poetic, philosophical concepts intimated in the play raise the themes to a heightened symbolism. It is ingenious crafting.”
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"Neither Jessi D. Hill’s snail-paced direction nor any of the mostly low-energy performances...can do much to enliven Hofmann’s play...Hofmann also includes several intrusive expository monologues...His choice to scramble the play’s chronology may have poetic qualities but it’s a distracting conceit that only serves to highlight the play’s weaknesses...I’m afraid ‘A Persistent Memory’ is one I’m likely to soon forget."
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“It is hard to tell where exactly this play fails, as the acting is so inconsistent and the cast speaks in a singsong that lulls you to sleep. The plot is so convoluted that you don’t care enough to pay attention. Ledbetter is not charismatic enough to make us care and his role is thinly written and confusing. Jessi D. Hill’s directing doesn’t help. Even the design elements don’t fuse properly. I honestly don’t understand how this got produced. For a 90-minute show, it felt like an eternity.”
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"Playwright Jackob G. Hofmann can clearly write. In this play, however, he seems to have been carried away by his own dialogue. Diverting exposition makes the piece feel jerky, muddling essential plot lines, losing the interesting elephant metaphor in the shuffle. Drew Ledbetter (David) is the weak link in a talented cast…Accents are varied contributing to authenticity."
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"A slow-moving drama...Told nonlinearly, 'A Persistent Memory' pieces together moments to offer a muddled message...Jessi D. Hill makes the most of the text. While the pacing is inexcusably slow, Hill does try to track David’s journey clearly...'A Persistent Memory' is one of those shows that you can see the team put the effort into constructing a strong production but the text was just not up to par, yet."
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