The New York Times
- Highly Recommended
"Keenly observed and often surprisingly funny — but ultimately heartbreaking — the work traces the roots of a tragedy with both forensic psychological detail and embracing compassion. Ms. Nottage is writing at the peak of her powers, and the superb cast and the director, Kate Whoriskey, rise to the occasion...'Sweat' is an ensemble play, and crucial to its effectiveness is the camaraderie among the characters."
NY Daily News
- Recommended
"Qui Nguyen's ode to his parents' history takes an unruly approach to a how-I-met-your-mother tale...Theatricality abounds: the fourth wall falls, Saigon falls too, cartoony ninjas kick into action, rap songs underscore everything. Except for the simplistic songs that stop the play in its tracks, it clicks."
Hollywood Reporter
- Somewhat Recommended
"While Nottage doesn't always manage to incorporate her research into entirely organic dialogue in the overlong play's lumpy first act, what follows becomes a powerful and compassionate song of blue-collar despair...Nottage introduces issues of race with refreshing candor...Not all the performances are quite so finely etched...But Whoriskey coaxes sensitive work from Colby, Alban, and Wilson. The standout in the ensemble, however, is Davis."
Vulture
- Somewhat Recommended
"Nottage's gripping but disappointing new play...Though all the actors have excellent moments, those moments are too often interrupted with clunky passages that defy their intelligence and attenuate their portrayals. The erratic direction of Kate Whoriskey, especially in scenes of general tumult and cross talk, doesn't help...If Nottage could just get her characters to fight for their own agendas instead of hers, 'Sweat' would be a lot more productive, and a lot less laborious."
Variety
- Recommended
"Nottage wrote 'Sweat' after extensive interviews with people in old factory towns like the one depicted here, which accounts for the solid character work and stretches of realistic dialogue. The plot is less successful for trying to cover every conceivable labor issue, from the failure of collective bargaining and the collapse of the trade unions to the toll on company towns when the local factory or steel mill goes under. But credit the writer for giving many forgotten Americans a voice."
Newsday
- Recommended
"Thanks to an excellent cast and an ace design team, we get close to slices of vivid life, sliced very thin, so the proud bones and the broken hearts become visible under the ordinary structure of the straightforward, naturalistic plot with its leisurely exposition...For all the modern technology that spins the scenes with a cinematic sweep, this is an old-fashioned Depression-era drama. The depression, however, is ours."
amNY
- Recommended
"Invokes the spirit of Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party, with commoners getting up in arms over what they perceive to be a corrupt and rigged society. A scene where a ballot box is smashed apart with a baseball bat is especially disturbing. Although it is rarely staged, 'Coriolanus' is a solid and straightforward drama, and Red Bull deserves a lot of credit for having the foresight to bring it back into the public eye at this very moment and for presenting it with such vitality."
Wall Street Journal
- Highly Recommended
"The cast has changed, in all cases for the better—the stylistic unanimity of Ms. Whoriskey's new ensemble of actors is awe-inspiring—but the play itself, which mostly takes place in a blue-collar bar in Reading, is substantially the same one I saw in Oregon...It's a deeply humane drama about real people with real problems, and no matter who you're voting for, if anyone, next Tuesday, you owe it to yourself to spend an evening with the desperate folk whom it portrays."
NorthJersey
- Recommended
"No other playwright has captured the social upheaval in America as acutely as Lynn Nottage does in her powerful, troubling drama 'Sweat'...Nottage's effort, vibrantly directed by Kate Whoriskey and performed by a strong ensemble cast, looks at the broader impact of financial stress, at the tearing apart of the country's hard-won social fabric...With each character deftly defined, we're quickly drawn into their interactions...The play is sobering, and deeply affecting."
Time Out New York
- Recommended
"Through her power as a dramatist, Nottage makes you empathize with the desperation and rage of citizens whose lives barely affect yours...Gripping and timely though 'Sweat' undoubtedly is, it's not as polished or galvanizing as Nottage's previous work...At times, the dialogue grows preachy or on-the-nose, ticking off points about NAFTA or intersectional racism...The acting is impassioned and full-bodied, and Kate Whoriskey's naturalistic staging is assured, fluid and emotionally vibrant."
The Wrap
- Recommended
"She's not scoring points for some leftist, anti-capitalist screed. There's nothing agitprop about her play...Nottage deploys this gift for naked disclosure at various key moments...Kate Whoriskey directs a remarkable cast that never condescends, and always finds the humanity in Nottage's characters...'Sweat' leaves us with the hope that only people take care of people. It is a play that will be performed long after the era it defines has passed."
Financial Times
- Somewhat Recommended
"It all adds up to a solid Marxist critique of US political economy and the conditions underlying the rise of Trump. As theatre, 'Sweat' is less successful because Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey stick to a ploddingly conventional dramatic style, which leaves little room for surprises or even critical reflection about its grim ideological message. There are some strong performances, but at over two hours Nottage's play often feels like hard labour."
The Guardian
- Recommended
"Incisive, uncondescending and quietly compassionate...Nottage allows drama to emerge through prisms of race, gender and class. She is passionate about making the political feel deeply personal...In this regard, 'Sweat,' which is attentively designed and dynamically acted, is a roughed-up jewel...Very occasionally the balance between dramatic action and social thesis goes wobbly...But more often this is a trenchant and moving play."
Deadline
- Highly Recommended
"No play in recent memory has shed more light on the crises and tribulations of America's great retrenched working middle class than Lynn Nottage's new play, 'Sweat.'...To her vast credit, and as evidenced in her growing body of work, Nottage gives us fully realized characters who, even when acting on their worst fears, are grippingly human. And Whoriskey proves again to be her steadfast collaborator, choreographing the unfolding events with intense specificity."
CurtainUp
- Recommended
"'Sweat' sees Lynn Nottage at a pinnacle in her career...Though I found the play's structure and conflicts too schematic and familiar to really tap into my deepest emotions until late in the second act, I don't think it will—or should—fade away along with the candidates defeated on this year's Election Day...Kate Whoriskey achieves a fine balance between the familial closeness and the simmering undercurrents of potential strains in the friendships and racial harmony."
Talkin Broadway
- Recommended
"Key portions of the action are dedicated to flipping forward eights years into the future to show us the aftermath of events, something that's anticlimactic and predictable...The dialogue throughout is cutting and compelling...and the scenes that dig most deeply into their fears, as internalized and externalized, are gut-wrenching in their ferocity. Terrifically directed by Kate Whoriskey, who amplifies every moment, you are never less than an inhabitant in this world."
TheaterMania
- Highly Recommended
"Nottage has crafted a microcosm of the recent past, showing just how fragile that ecosystem was. It ought to be required viewing for all Americans...Better than any playwright who has dealt with the subject in this century, Nottage delicately unpacks the interplay of race and class in American society...Much credit goes to Kate Whoriskey for directing an unrelenting production that keeps our eyes glued to the stage...The best new play of the season."
TheaterScene.net
- Recommended
"The rhetoric of the recent presidential campaign made it patently clear that blue collar workers are extremely upset about the loss of our jobs to Mexico and China and the closing of our factories. Lynn Nottage takes this demographic which is usually ignored on our stages and puts them front and center in her new play ‘Sweat', having its NY premiere at The Public Theater. ‘Sweat' beautifully dramatized the effect of this problem but offers no answers of its own."
Edge New York
- Highly Recommended
"The relentlessly authentic production brings to mind earlier work of the playwright…However, Nottage's working class drama is a revelation because of its anima. This is a play that demands itself to unearth the meaning and the stigma of disenfranchisement...Having won the 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, do not be surprised if 'Sweat' is shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize next year."
Epoch Times
- Somewhat Recommended
"Powerfully acted and strongly directed, the story sharply resonates due to its lack of easy answers. Yet the very familiarity of the tale is also the play's weakness...While 'Sweat' offers a very compelling story, it's one that's been told many times before and offers no new ground. The play hits all the emotional moments and too-familiar refrains almost as if checking them off a list..It's a testament to the actors that the play works as well as it does."
Huffington Post
- Recommended
"Nottage, author of the Pulitzer-winner 'Ruined,' returns with her new play 'Sweat,' which is every bit as powerful and accomplished...The play moves briskly and the actors are directed so that scene after scene impactfully lands. But it is the writing which gets us. Nottage spins her tale and her characters' lives, and wraps everything up superbly. After which she provides a final scene that grabs you by the heart and leaves you gasping at the curtain. Beautiful writing, and a beautiful play."
Theater Pizzazz
- Recommended
"Nottage's new heartrending drama...Tempers flare, tensions rise, friendships are torn apart as this truth becomes reality and the lockouts begin...The result: a more than disturbing and violent climax. This is truly a close-knit ensemble of fine actors who work brilliantly together under Kate Whoriskey's fine tutelage. This socio-economic and racial tragedy gives pause to the many issues raised. The topic isn't new but a reminder in its realistic portrayal of the problems that plague our country."
DC Theatre Scene
- Recommended
"How did this solid town–and by extension, a significant swath of the working population in America—implode?...'Sweat' isn't as concerned with answering as in bringing us into the world of her credible, engaging characters, embodied by a terrific cast...There is a feeling of general comity–until it is shattered when the company starts making clear its ominous plans for cost reductions. What might have been under the surface all along, explodes into envy, resentment and prejudice."
Front Row Center
- Recommended
"Ms. Nottage (and director Kate Whorisky) have succeeded in creating lives that connect directly to us in ways that the nightly news or this nauseating political campaign fail to do on any level. These people are us...All that remains to be done to this piece is to take a pair of shears and snip, snip, snip. Ms. Nottage's writing is so clear and precise that she makes her points quickly. Most do not need to be explained or dissected, especially in the hands of such a solid cast."
WNBC
- Recommended
"The story here is suspenseful, but hardly new, and certainly a fixture of our daily election season media diet...All the characters are honorable people who want to put in an honest day's work and be respected accordingly, though they're given varying degrees of likability. 'Sweat' is a remarkably nimble and lucid drama, and for that reason alone I'm probably guilty of having expected profound wisdom -- instead, it left me more upset than enlightened. All these good questions, with no easy answers."
Phindie
- Highly Recommended
"Nottage has written the great American play we need right now...Nottage leaves a loose plot thread or two, but she captures something important: when factories start closing, people in this close-knit, economically-depressed place turn on each other, often in race-baiting ways, instead of turning on the political and economic system that failed them...'Sweat' is even-handed, nuanced and empathetic."
WNYC
- Highly Recommended
"Nottage has written the great American play we need right now...Nottage leaves a loose plot thread or two, but she captures something important: when factories start closing, people in this close-knit, economically-depressed place turn on each other, often in race-baiting ways, instead of turning on the political and economic system that failed them...'Sweat' is even-handed, nuanced and empathetic."
Off Off Online
- Recommended
"This complex, beautifully written drama premiered more than a year ago...And its themes transcend the present moment...The playwright's gift for dialogue and characterization are so assured and accurate that the spectator is likely to overlook the periodic grinding of the play's expository machinery…Like all the best naturalistic drama, it's an exhaustive journey through the tortuous byways of the human heart."
Bobs Theater Blog
- Highly Recommended
"While corporate greed, globalization, racism and immigration policy all underlie the action, the play is not a sociopolitical screed. Nottage wisely keeps our attention on vividly drawn characters and on how forces beyond their control are refracted in their lives...It all makes for a gripping experience. The cast is uniformly excellent...Director Kate Whoriskey once again does Nottage full justice."
Reviewing The Drama
- Recommended
"It is fascinating to watch this in an election year (and so close to this election itself). With 'Sweat,' Nottage takes a sensitive, non-judgmental look at an oft-misunderstood segment of America...Through Nottage's fully drawn characters (and Kate Whoriskey's direction and the actors' performances), we see that there isn't something sinister about these people; they are not stupid or low class or deplorable."
NJ.com
- Highly Recommended
"Lynn Nottage's hugely ambitious and moving new play 'Sweat' is a 'Death of a Salesman' for a new generation...'Sweat' never feels like a civics lecture. That's because Nottage has crafted fully lived-in characters and placed them in a believable, gripping story...All nine of the actors are terrific...In an age where most politically-minded theater is allusive and occasionally precious, it's thrilling to see a writer strip away the veil of allegory and speak straight from the heart."
Broadway World
- Recommended
"Day and Wilson do excellent work playing the subtext of racial tension lying slightly beneath their labor/management conflict...Inevitably, tensions build into onstage violence, staged with horrific realism by U. Jonathan Toppo. While the decline of American communities when jobs are sent to other countries is a familiar subject, Nottage's even-handed treatment of multiple viewpoints, giving sympathy to all sides, makes 'Sweat' a truly realistic and moving tragedy."
