Oh My Sweet Land

See it if Oh, the onions...feel the burn, If you can get a ticket. Willing to step out of theater and into the kitchen.

Don't see it if No reason not to.

See it if Just go, if you can. Powerful story, incredible acting, terrific writing and staging. Brings focus to an important story often overlooked.

Don't see it if Just go. Unless you have no sympathy for innocent people caught up in a war they didn't choose.

See it if If you want to experience a forceful and absorbing play about a woman and her stories/memories about war, politics, torture and sex.

Don't see it if You look for a night of light entertainment. The stories that you will hear during this strong performance will leave you devastated

See it if you are numb from all the horrifying images of Syrian cities & refugees - this will rekindle your fatigued compassion. Must see!

Don't see it if you can't reconcile seeing a play abt people who have so little from the kitchen of people who have so much. Otherwise see it, it's so good.

Also I would have rated this a point or two higher if not for the lighting where I was sitting.

Saw this in Carroll Gardens and sat on the side of the kitchen, where for a lot (maybe 40%) of the show the stage lights shined right in my eyes. I know kitchens aren't made for theater lighting and the actor had to deal with much worse (sometimes she stood directly over a light tube for several minutes - that could not have been fun for her eyes), but it made me physically uncomfortable, esp at the beginning of the show before I had become fully immersed in the story.... Read more Read less

See it if You enjoy intimate, site-specific, immersive theatre that explores intense subject matter, both personal and political.

Don't see it if You're hungry: the delicious smells of Ms. Zuabi's cooking are fabulous. Also, chefs, try not to be alarmed by her knife technique.

Also A near perfect play, a near perfect theatre experience, performed in someone's actual kitchen, in the performance I saw, deep in Alphabet City.

Ms. Zuabi should receive an Obie for her beautiful writing, beautifully acted. She made me weep in horror for the Syrian people. Yet also in sympathy and recognition for her personal struggles and pain as a Syrian American woman in this xenophobic and anti-Arab time, and from loving someone you can't have.

Most brilliant moment: the bitterness of the onions while cooking and at one point, burning, which made the clearly mostly affluent (and white) audience cringe, and made visibly uncomfortable. Some even looked annoyed.

No spoilers, but anyone familiar with recent Syrian history would tell you that there is a poignant, horrifying point to the discomfort you experience. While you can't eat the meal of kobbeh Ms. Zuabi makes, she certainly makes you eat your American privilege. Bonus: she provides you a nice dessert to end your meal.... Read more Read less

See it if Intense experience of a woman seeking ... God? ... amidst the Syrian war. Performed in a kitchen. As the meat cooks, so do the people.

Don't see it if You don't want to be immersed in the horrors of the war, alongside the resilience and beauty of the people.