NorthJersey - Highly Recommended
"There is nothing in Evan Bergman's direction nor the merely adequate performances all around that adds any type of amusement or tenderness…The multitude of scenes, one of which has Les just tidying up magazines, are endless and all prove innocuous…Somewhere in this languid mess of a play there indeed is a sharp satire about the have and have-nots. But you have to look mighty deep to find an ounce of that. As for 'A Better Place,' it was when I left the theater."
Telegraph - Highly Recommended
"The 40 year-sweep of the narrative has been judiciously streamlined...The result is a production that is tight, taught and powerful…The upbeat score is triumphant enough to inspire more than just polite applause from the audience, whose enthusiastic whoops and cheers spilt over into vociferous appreciation…With dialogue as sharp and contemporary as the dance moves, I left the theatre not only with ringing ears and damp eyes, but also a notebook full of witty one-liners."
Faster Times - Recommended
"John Doyle's production, which slims down the musical, also makes an overwhelming virtue of the small-scale. Though I found this staging cumulatively poignant, I will not pretend that 'The Color Purple' belongs in the pantheon…If Doyle's production still takes the story too fervently to church, it also allows a place for subtlety…The entire ensemble bring precision to the songs' mixture of blues, gospel and pop uplift."
CurtainUp - Not Recommended
"Les, the protagonist, is confident that the family in the apartment with no curtains across the way is rich and happy. If he were right, Ms. Beckett wouldn't have a play. As things stand, she doesn't have much of a play anyway…'A Better Place' begins with an amusing premise but swiftly runs amok. Despite the six actors' valiant efforts, Beckett's characters seldom behave in ways that are psychologically credible and the prolix dialogue is, by and large, devoid of verisimilitude."
TheaterMania - Not Recommended
"Beckett loads her story with bizarre plots twists that never seem to build to anything…Everyone in this story is relatively privileged when it comes to real estate, a fact that could have served as a launching pad for a deeper exploration of the fallacies in our present conversation around inequality. Instead, Beckett settles for soap-operatic plot twists and a hastily constructed conclusion…The themes underlying 'A Better Place' are monumentally important. They deserve a better play."
Theatre Is Easy - Not Recommended
"Director Evan Bergman's greatest moment is the show's opening, a carefully staged dumb show that gives us a very clear sense of what life is like in these two apartments...There is very little information that is communicated for the remainder of the evening...This excellent ensemble of actors serves the play well...Ultimately, the play is somewhat repetitive...Though the production is aesthetically beautiful, there's not enough action in the play to captivate the audience's attention."
Huffington Post - Not Recommended
"Cal and Tim are so volatile that audience members will wonder why they're watching such unpleasant people...It may be that the eventual ‘Cal in Camo' saving grace is its illustration of how disappointed and disturbed people find a way to get through to one another. Unfortunately, Cal, Tim and Flynt are unbearable for so long—Adrienne Campbell-Holt is the flummoxed director—that by the time they reconcile, few watching them will care."
NY Theatre Guide - Somewhat Recommended
"Maitner delivers a first-class performance, and FitzGibbon matches him well despite having a less interesting role…There is definitely something here, and the idea of New Yorkers watching the lives of the people across the way is a good one...The trouble is that there is one too many clever twists to the plot and characters that are not quite as polished as one would like. Less is more, and here there is more rather than less. The show has great potential, which is not entirely realized."
Theatre Reviews Limited - Not Recommended
"Unfortunately, this particular journey to get there is long, slow and predictable, offering no new insight and executed by stereotypical characters that are one dimensional…The dialogue does not move the plot or define the characters. Who cares if anyone ends up in a better place! The cast does what they can to entertain, usually relying on forced comedic situations but there are too many obstacles to overcome so they succumb to stereotypes to produce humor."
Broadway Blog - Somewhat Recommended
"If you ever need to answer the question "What has more holes than Swiss cheese?" you can say...Wendy Beckett's ‘A Better Place,' an...underwhelming, overacted comedy...‘A Better Place''s plot advances when John wins $96,000 on a single race at Belmont and, on his way home, loses...the payout. The money's loss sets in motion a sequence of egregious coincidences...you wouldn't believe even if I told you."
Theater Pizzazz - Not Recommended
"Love. Money. Real Estate...there's a better play to be written about these topics than Beckett's mostly muddled one-act...Director Bergman has a lot on his hands with this slightly overstuffed play...At times, he gets the cast to rise above the material...But sometimes the lines just fall flat despite their efforts, and the show drags…For all its flaws, though, ‘Place' does accomplish something special. No matter where you live, the place you really want to head to after seeing it is home."
DC Theatre Scene - Recommended
"From the very first moments of Lincoln Center's ravishing 'The King and I,' it feels like a privilege just to be sitting in the audience...And so it goes, each scene flowing seamlessly, and splendidly, into the next, allowing for the breathtaking spectacle this musical deserves...However, the ballet brings home a fact that is hard to deny: It encourages us to identify with the prevailing world view – that European morality and culture are superior to any other."
Front Row Center - Not Recommended
"The mother/daughter bits work quite well...The gay couple are written as stereotypes...The younger character is superficial but suddenly opens up with a longing for the family he didn't have. That's about as deep as it gets. What's missing is missing from the script...Finally, all is revealed, but it takes way too long to get to it. 'A Better Place' began with a good idea but ultimately didn't gel. The plot is thin and relies on cliché, on silly underlining."
Bobs Theater Blog - Recommended
"I fear that the present play attempts to tell too many stories at once...The entire cast is superb: Topol is Lemml, the stage manager. The other actors all play multiple roles and succeed in making us care about characters that are not that fully developed. The production is greatly enhanced by a trio of klezmer musicians and choreography by Dorfman...While there is much to admire in this production, the many elements did not cohere as well as I would have liked."
Act Three - The Reviews - Not Recommended
"The show is sold as a comedy about New York real estate…What I got instead was a rather repetitive, snooze of a show that simply plotted poor rent-controlled brownstone renters in Brooklyn situated across from a modern, all glass and steel high-rise…Casting seemed a hodge-podge of mix and match talents…There were several scenes that were absolutely out of left field...Waaaay too long, waaaay to repetitive…A hot mess of a show with little entertainment value."
Entertainmant Hour Blog - Somewhat Recommended
"Bergman has a thrust stage as her personal canvas...Maitner conveys Les as the self-limited middle-aged waiter faced with his own past. His character was funny and relatable...Fitzgibbon created a mirror for Maitner's character and offered the comic relief and introspection. The two had good chemistry...The play was introspective (yet somewhat predictable) and showed the inner turmoil that many of us all face in our search for the next beginning."
Our Ladies and Gentle Men - Recommended
"The minimalist effect was meant to make the new version much more character driven, and the cast members of this new production rise to the occasion…The magic of this production is that the story, though set eight decades ago, feels so current...It is the best explanation for why the story has been revisited so often, and why it continues to resonate."
