“Lloyd makes a charming and entirely sympathetic Jo...There’s a peculiar lack of warmth to Lapine’s production as a whole...These Marches don’t feel much like a unit, and the first act, performed with too-manic energy, is hobbled by our not knowing most of them in any depth...The play is more frolicsome and complex on the page than in this production, which seems undecided whether to aim itself at school-age audiences, grown-ups or — ideally — both.”
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"Reimagines Alcott's beloved 19th-century coming-of-age tale through a modern lens...During the play’s first fabulous act, director Sarna Lapine keeps the episodic tale moving swiftly and smoothly as the cast leans into the humor without sacrificing the heart. Act II, by comparison, seems rushed and disjointed—and, perhaps, a little too woke...Yet the talented women associated with this production, both on stage and off, sustain its magic for so long that it seems ungrateful to belittle them."
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“Hamill’s ‘Little Women’ is trying to make the old feel new...and, frustratingly, it’s trying both way too hard and not hard enough...Its characters reduced either to one-dimensional conveyors...or to mouthpieces for modern indignation...The constant hammering home of the play’s big — and relatively facile — ideas, along with the production’s winky, overplayed lightheartedness, puts the show in territory that veers dangerously close to children’s theater.”
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"If you're going to do 'Little Women,' you've got to come up with something fresh to say about it, something this production doesn't really do...The playwright's approach hammers the characters into two-dimensional figures...This is an aimless entertainment that dutifully makes its points without much force or warmth or any sense of fun."
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"A sublime example of how to make 19th century works relevant to modern audiences...A color-conscious cast highlights elements of the characters that have remained unseen in other adaptations...This Jo commands the stage with equal measures of fire and kindness, and seeing a black woman in the part can't help but remind us of how much our society expects from women of color."
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“Hamill’s now gone hog-wild-radical with Alcott’s ‘Little Women’...If you’re fond of that authorized version...you may have a difficult time with Hamill’s loosey-goosey alteration...Hamill gives it a contemporary spin for these LGBTA/LGBTQ days...Classics are classics because they so universal in myriad ways that they stay cogent no matter when they’re encountered. They hardly require upstart ideas on nudging them into renewed life."
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"Director Sarna Lapine’s austere approach to the visuals, which includes modest approximations of Victorian dress that the characters do not change as several years go by, becomes Hamill’s uncluttered retelling of the story. Lapine paces the actors at a fairly brisk clip...Hamill’s adaptation of 'Little Women'—for all of its contemporary attitudes and talk—is a relatively straightforward interpretation of the novel."
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"Hamill's adaptation of the Alcott novel is entertaining and engrossing though the modern sensibility is likely to bother devotees of the novel. The amiable and energetic cast keeps the story moving swiftly along. However, there is little sense of period which might disturb some: is it likely Jo would wear men's clothing in 1861 New England, away from the Bohemian centers that someone like novelist George Sand frequented? And all the talk of 'gender roles' seems excessively 21st century."
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