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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 29, 2025
3.5, rounded down.
Tony award winning local boy Moses (he grew up in the SF Bay Area, as did I), has nothing to prove, and there is MUCH to admire in his latest, which was a recent finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
And perhaps it plays much better than it reads - but my main complaint is that in the whirlwind of discussion about some vitally relevant current issues (most prominently the Israel-Palestine conflict and the brutality of police violence against POC), the play becomes overly didactic and polemical.
When characters often hold forth for literally 2-3 pages of uninterrupted speechifying, I just felt like I was at a TED talk with bullet points, rather than a play. Of course, one could validly make the argument that drama inherently stems from just such 'Socratic discourse' - but there is a reason the original Greek plays are rarely mounted these days - or if they are, are usually heavily 'adapted' to suit contemporary audiences.
My other quibble is that that the latter issue revolves around the killing of a young black man accused of stealing cars - early on we are assured he was NOT guilty of doing such, and the evidence is on a videotape of his 'murder', which the titular protagonist steadfastly refuses to watch. The end of the first act explosively ends with another character categorically stating that the 'victim' was indeed guilty - and that issue is then never resolved in the second act - but perhaps that was the point.
Regardless, I felt like I was being overly manipulated by the script and wholeheartedly agree with the first three 3-star reviews' criticisms below. Perhaps I would have felt differently had I seem the original Off-Bway production myself.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
https://nystagereview.com/2024/02/28/...
https://nystagereview.com/2024/02/28/...
https://www.vulture.com/article/theat...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/th...
https://www.theatermania.com/news/rev...
Tony award winning local boy Moses (he grew up in the SF Bay Area, as did I), has nothing to prove, and there is MUCH to admire in his latest, which was a recent finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
And perhaps it plays much better than it reads - but my main complaint is that in the whirlwind of discussion about some vitally relevant current issues (most prominently the Israel-Palestine conflict and the brutality of police violence against POC), the play becomes overly didactic and polemical.
When characters often hold forth for literally 2-3 pages of uninterrupted speechifying, I just felt like I was at a TED talk with bullet points, rather than a play. Of course, one could validly make the argument that drama inherently stems from just such 'Socratic discourse' - but there is a reason the original Greek plays are rarely mounted these days - or if they are, are usually heavily 'adapted' to suit contemporary audiences.
My other quibble is that that the latter issue revolves around the killing of a young black man accused of stealing cars - early on we are assured he was NOT guilty of doing such, and the evidence is on a videotape of his 'murder', which the titular protagonist steadfastly refuses to watch. The end of the first act explosively ends with another character categorically stating that the 'victim' was indeed guilty - and that issue is then never resolved in the second act - but perhaps that was the point.
Regardless, I felt like I was being overly manipulated by the script and wholeheartedly agree with the first three 3-star reviews' criticisms below. Perhaps I would have felt differently had I seem the original Off-Bway production myself.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
https://nystagereview.com/2024/02/28/...
https://nystagereview.com/2024/02/28/...
https://www.vulture.com/article/theat...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/th...
https://www.theatermania.com/news/rev...
December 9, 2025
There's a joke on the very first page that fell so flat to me it hurt my outlook of the rest of the book.
This felt like too much long winded arguments and not enough of a story where humans have characterization.
This felt like too much long winded arguments and not enough of a story where humans have characterization.
January 2, 2026
I would have given everything to see this live.
This play opens up conversations without the ability to interrupt. Without the chance to give your own opinion. It makes the audience face all sides of the conflict. It makes the audience take new perspectives without the chance of fighting back or agreeing, and I loved it.
This play opens up conversations without the ability to interrupt. Without the chance to give your own opinion. It makes the audience face all sides of the conflict. It makes the audience take new perspectives without the chance of fighting back or agreeing, and I loved it.
Read
September 8, 2025incredibly incredibly incredibly difficult thing to write about
and it's clear a lot of time and care went into that
I think anybody could walk away from this play having learned something
I think the playwright is being very honest
and it's clear a lot of time and care went into that
I think anybody could walk away from this play having learned something
I think the playwright is being very honest
January 5, 2026
i almost pulled this out to read in front of itamar moses tonight. luckily i didnt because this shit is hackneyed and didactic 😂
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews