Butler NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (68)
See it if you like historical drama, great acting, a meaningful story, many laughs.
Don't see it if you want to miss a terrific play
See it if you like great writing well acted. I did not know of Butler prior to seeing this performance, and was very pleasantly surprised.
Don't see it if You don't like period pieces, or prefer musicals. (I saw at 59E59 August 2016)
See it if You want to learn more about a little known important piece of history. Play is entertaining and clever, never preachy
Don't see it if You are put off by good characters who do not act in expected ways.
See it if You want to open your eyes to a different opinion
Don't see it if You think you know everything about the civel war
See it if Outstanding cast, excellent play,well directed with "something to say"! Important to see!
Don't see it if The subject or racism done with humor is not for you.
See it if you're interested in the civil war, race relations, great dialogue, & a historical example of creative lawyering to protect human rights :)
Don't see it if you are looking for modernized adaptations, action-heavy productions, or don't care about historical drama
See it if you enjoy historical Civil War dramas about real events
Don't see it if you don't enjoy a show about the civil war and slavery
See it if you enjoy fun, thought-provoking historical fiction. The performances are first-rate and the two hours flies by!
Don't see it if you want something very heavy and serious. While the themes are important, it's presented with great humor and a light touch.
Critic Reviews (30)
"A surprisingly genial comedy…Some might quibble with this interpretation of the way things might have been but history is always subjective and susceptible to myth making...It's a delicate balancing act and director Joseph Discher brings it off, letting the audience know that it's OK to laugh but refusing to let the show devolve into a cartoon…Ames Adamson gives a wonderfully sympathetic performance."
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"The setting is indubitable, and the laughs are plentiful, so if it stands alone in a genre of one, it doesn’t matter…The meat of the play is the debate between general and slave about asylum. As in many classic comedies, the servant is a shrewd cookie...Williams’s skillful performance keeps the right balance...A strong, satisfying comedy...'Butler' makes one want to hear more from Richard Strand."
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"Strand’s drama is a crisp cat-and-mouse game with snappy dialogue and verbal jousting. It seems rather inappropriate to consider it a comedy, but Strand has managed to infuse his negotiations with razor-sharp wit, all of which is delivered by a top-notch cast under Joseph Discher‘s excellent direction. The most disturbing takeaway from it however, is the commentary on human life. Sure, slavery ended with the Civil War and yet 150 years later we’re still a fractured nation."
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"An invigorating gabfest...You are laughing out loud at the sheer brilliance of the argument, and at other times the words cut deeper than a musket bayonet as the wounds of race, slavery, privilege, and pomposity fester…It is beyond satisfying. The quartet of descanting performers create a beautiful play together under the exceptional eye of director Joseph Discher, who has fashioned a stylish, eloquent production drenched in detail…The performances are riveting."
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"Rarely has a slice of history been as entertainingly portrayed as in 'Butler'...It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the dialogue was lifted from an actual recording…Deftly directed by Joseph Discher, the tale unfolds over an engrossing two hours…John G. Williams is a revelation…Richard Strand didn’t invent his plot, but there aren’t any new ones anyway. Making imaginary or real characters so sympathetic, so funny and so relevant, is damn good playwriting no matter the source."
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"Highly recommended. Well acted by the four-person cast, well directed by Joseph Discher, well worth your time—albeit somewhat overwritten, which takes more of your time (Mr. Strand could trim 10 to 15 minutes of the script easily)…For all that its issues about history and co-existence are deadly serious, the play, like its main character, is slyly funny. Like the best plays about history, it resonates with contemporary life, and its personality is very, engagingly human."
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“‘Butler’ is an outstanding, captivating, important play about race relations. The play focuses on an event in American history that acted as a catalyst which helped enact a sea change for racial equality. On May 23, 1861 at Fort Monroe, Virginia, three courageous fugitive slaves – Shepard Mallory, Frank Baker and James Townsend – and a shrewd politic Major General Benjamin Franklin Butler worked in tandem in unexpected ways to set in motion the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862.”
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"The witty dialogue forms the foundation for the relationships, and makes for a compelling way to trace history...The play paints a complex picture of the financial and political price of doing what is right, while creating characters that are quite funny and relatable. A lack of detail on the characters’ pasts or emotional stakes hinders deeper resonance with their stories, and the actors are not given many chances to be vulnerable with each other."
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