“A tired rehash of the obvious talking points, served up with a minimum of nuance...A rare dramatic staging by Martin Charnin...and he handles this awkward script awkwardly. His cast clearly needs help...At least ‘Secret Sea’ has a polished design...But this is an especially dreary evening that tips its hand far too early yet still allows its characters to express their clichés at length. If you've ever wondered what ninety minutes of hand-wringing might be like, this is the show for you.”
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"More tolerance experiment than a traditional play, it asks that you confront your own beliefs and prejudices about when life begins and ends, and what it means in the interim...If it never completely succeeds, it's an admirable effort, and one of the most fearlessly serious and human plays I've ever seen. Its refusal to rely on tricks and tropes is refreshing, as is its eschewing the easy answers and tidy conclusions...I was not, however, moved in any way but intellectually, remotely. "
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"Under Martin Charnin's pacey direction...The actors do their best to downplay the sense that we are watching a debate about marriage, parenthood and the bad deck of cards we're sometimes dealt...Ms. Ryan doesn't dish up a facile happy ending and the finale she has devised is eloquently heart-felt. She's also written some good dialogue. However, the top heavy plot with its too convenient details left me wondering if 'In the Secret Sea' wouldn't work better as a documentary."
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"The title of Cate Ryan’s brilliant and captivating script comes from the idea that a woman’s womb is like a secret sea, and this interplays masterfully with the concepts and moral issues that are raised...The stand-out performance of the evening was provided by the father-to-be, played confidently by Adam Petherbridge...At times shocking, but always engaging, 'In the Secret Sea' will leave you mulling its thought-provoking questions long after the last curtain call."
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"Cate Ryan has found a meaningfully engaging subject; her flawed but well-meaning characters and situations will move many theatregoers. You can argue with the clumsy infusions of personal tragedies each of the couples calls upon to justify their positions, or with the play’s egregiously sentimental epilogue, with its quote from Yeats's "The Stolen Child," but the core issue—for all the superficiality of its treatment—is affecting enough to keep you in your seat for the play's 80 minutes."
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"Ryan has done her research, and the technical sections of the play ring with a fair amount of seeming accuracy. It is in the relationships among the five characters who populate her story that she falls short...It’s only the very real pain felt by Kenny, which young Adam Petherbridge conveys most movingly, that piques our interest...A noble attempt to dramatize a difficult subject, but there is no majesty in the telling, and it left me informed, but unmoved."
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