“For as much as the play aims to engage the audience in a fly-on-the-wall view of a group of people...it still neglects to provide the necessary context to make the pre-existing relationships and the character arcs feel real.”
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"4/5 Stars! While the play has hackneyed moments, many of the interactions feel real and raw, vibrating with authenticity and considerable humor. Padilla doesn't peddle a simplified #MeToo, #AllMen message. 'How to Defend Yourself' is a tumultuous and surprisingly entertaining investigation of how all of us are warped by rape culture."
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“Liliana Padilla's ‘How to Defend Yourself’ has its moments of strength...The scene is meticulously choreographed, but it doesn't feel like a polished performance. They're tapping into something bigger.”
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“Liliana Padilla’s ‘How to Defend Yourself’ is a hilarious and unsettling play about exercises...everyone approaches the exercises in ‘How to Defend Yourself’ with different levels of seriousness, keeping their actual intentions to themselves or not even understanding their own intentions, which makes for rich material.”
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“ ‘How to Defend Yourself,’ directed beautifully in its New York premiere by Tony winner Rachel Chavkin, is surprisingly hilarious considering its dark subject matter.”
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Padilla's focus is extremely narrow -- if their characters have any outside interests, we don't hear about them and, aside from an ill-timed girl-on-girl kiss, they are totally heterosexual -- and yet it feels blisteringly honest, a frank portrayal nevertheless informed by a certain tenderness. Especially remarkable is the playwright's ability to foreground the comedy of calamitous social interactions without ever losing sight of the crime that has stained everyone's lives. It's an exquisite balancing act and they rarely, if ever, put a foot wrong.
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“ ‘How to Defend Yourself’ is messy and sometimes feels less like a drama than a polemic, but people are going to be talking about it, and maybe that talk will wise some of them up.”
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“If you’ve already guessed this is an exercise in 21st century women’s empowerment, you’re on the right track.”
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