“If it weren’t for the play’s ludicrous reversals and recurrent eddies of argument, it would last about 10 minutes instead of 85...You can’t blame the cast members, who ride the hairpin turns of their characters with nearly convincing finesse. Nor is the subject of gun violence and its aftermath unworthy...The story is too baldly engineered — too bullying, in fact — to engage the audience in the manner necessary to produce empathy.”
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"We suspect these Chekhovian guns will play a major part in the ensuing 90 minutes of McKeever's play, which, like the living room it occupies, is a little too perfect to be believed...McKeever makes sure to neutralize the issue of electoral politics...Brancato directs the cast to credible performances that only occasionally succumb to the heavy sentiment of McKeever's script...A play that sputters to its conclusion."
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“A powerful and profound drama...The cast masters their portrayals of parents dealing with tensions and dire circumstances...The company seamlessly delivers McKeever's finely crafted dialogue and captures their characters' distinct personalities...A timely and cautionary tale about the prevalence of bullying and its potential consequences. You don't have to be a parent to relate to this story and be moved by gravity of this issue. See this important production.”
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"Intelligent but contrived, its characters given to making orations instead of conversing like real people...This last quality is not alleviated by Joe Brancato's direction, which lets most of the cast members face out front and deliver their lines...'After' isn't dull but it never really finds a voice, and the people in it aren't individual enough to capture one's interest. It's a technical exercise, a thesis play that spends its ninety minutes decrying materialism and lax gun laws."
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"To McKeever’s credit, he expands broadly on the characters’ psychological underpinnings...Audience members who haven’t seen 'God of Carnage' are in for a fresh and strong ride...'After' looks clear-eyed at the marred institution of marriage and at rampant bullying, but it doesn’t shy away from other current concerns...Brancato directs 'After' with the iron hand it requires, which means that the cast is uniformly strong. It’s an impressive ensemble."
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“You can hear a pin drop during Michael McKeever’s ‘After’, an exciting, riveting play about the aftereffects of bullying. During the final scene in Joe Brancato's production, the tension is so thick that no one in the audience seems to be breathing to see how it will play out. Like McKeever's ‘Daniel's Husband’, the author wants us to see the events from more than one side but his message is clear by the end: parents make excuses for their children and allow for bullying to go on unchecked.”
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“’After’ turns out to be just talk itself, with relatively little to say...Everything we’re going to learn about these people—all white, by the way—can be gleaned in their first few minutes onstage...Some of the snippy humor early on lands adroitly, but it all feels like it’s buying time until the great ‘event’, the aftermath of which becomes unnecessarily contrived and melodramatic with a last-minute reveal that undermines the play’s attempts at moral ambiguity.”
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"A suspenseful journey directed with the utmost perceptive sensitivity...The scenes change as titles above the stage reflect the 'Before,' 'During,' and 'After' of this suspense driven psychological drama that asks and attempts to answer questions that plague our existence. Other than the fact that there can be some repetitious moments in this 85 minute, no intermission drama, I will leave this as a Spoiler Alert and add that the cast is uniformly wonderful and this is a play to be seen."
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