"Ms. Sarandon might not be ideally cast in the role of the flamboyantly dotty Lorraine...As embodied by Ms. Sarandon in this wobbly New Group production — directed by Scott Elliott and also starring the invaluable Marin Ireland — Lorraine always seems a bit abstracted, as if she had other, darker things on her mind than the glories of musical comedy. So, to put it mildly, does 'Happy Talk.'...Mr. Eisenberg’s play and Mr. Elliott’s direction never seem to settle on a cohesive tone."
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"The only good thing to be said about Jesse Eisenberg’s dismal new play is that it’s a real value: It’s two bad plays for the price of one...There’s something superior and even cruel about the play’s sense of humor, which mostly derives from Lorraine’s unabated awfulness...The comedy of 'Happy Talk' is so sour and the drama so ham-fisted and misdirected that I found myself weirdly grateful for Oreskes’s Bill, a character who spends the play grimacing in an armchair."
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"Alternately amusing and discomfiting...'Happy Talk' proves genuinely enjoyable in its first half, with Sarandon clearly having a blast as the self-centered diva...It's when the play turns darker that it becomes increasingly tiresome and unconvincing...Though Scott Elliott's staging fails to provide stylistic cohesion to a play in need of further development, the evening nonetheless has its pleasures, thanks in large part to the terrific performances."
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"At the very least, 'Happy Talk,' a wobbly living room drama by Jesse Eisenberg, ought to make theatergoers eager to revisit the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical 'South Pacific'...Eisenberg’s plays function best as detailed portraits of complex and often difficult people. Many of the narrative elements of 'Happy Talk' are clumsy, creepy and heavy-handed. Nevertheless, 'Happy Talk' is often absorbing."
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"If only we had reason to care about these relationships. Eisenberg writes the majority of his play like a drawing-room comedy and uses that as leave to design Lorraine as the perpetual punchline to a single joke...Exposing an unhealthy trope that you yourself are exploiting for laughs does not earn profundity points...Shock is a valuable dramatic tool, but not independent from genuine insight and a fundamental shift in perspective."
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“The pièce de résistance of the play's credibility problems is the plot...By the time ‘Happy Talk’ completes the transition from acid comedy to psychological thriller, it may very well be too late...I suppose you can view 'Happy Talk' as a parable of the dangers of narcissism...But the playwright's way of pinning down his characters, as if in a butterfly collection, makes his play something of an ordeal...Ultimately, ‘Happy Talk’ is undone by its dismissive attitude toward its characters.”
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"Although the play suffers from a hasty, not entirely convincing conclusion, the characters are vividly composed, and director Scott Elliott provides a smoothly paced production...Perhaps Sarandon was experiencing an off night at a recent preview, but her portrait of a possibly crazy lady was not entirely convincing to me."
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"Under Scott Elliott's nimble direction, Sarandon and Ireland do superb, nuanced work traversing the different roles and responsibilities suggested in Lorraine and Ljuba’s friendly, fraught relationship...Eisenberg crafts characters and dialogue that will prove instantly accessible, and very funny, both to those intimately acquainted with the milieu he’s sending up and the presumable minority of audience members who aren’t."
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