“Eventful, often sweet but ultimately overwrought…Almost everything that happens after the disaster feels even falser than the onion…None of these changes have been justified in terms of character, only calamity. The story thus ends up shrinking…If there are stumbles along the way, there are also many felicities…The acting is terrific across the board, but you can probably sense the way Ms. Kennedy has overentangled her characters, like an anxious sailor making redundant knots."
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“The prose is sometimes purple and the exposition is sometimes bald. Yet thanks to sensitive performances, Kennedy’s mechanics frequently work as designed, cranking up the stakes and delivering vivid emotional moments on cue…Kennedy is good at sensation scenes…The rest of the text is weaker, but director Gordon Edelstein is blessed with a cast that evokes authentic feeling. They dance us around in that old melodrama two-step: They cry, we cry, and we all feel a little better.”
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"Feels both thematically overstuffed and undernourished. The playwright seems to be straining too hard for effect here...The drama creaks under the weight of too many machinations...The play benefits from a strong sense of atmosphere provided by director Gordon Edelstein...The performances are largely first-rate…For all its seeming authenticity—the play was inspired by events in the life of the playwright's mother—the evening feels as ersatz as today's tourist-clogged Little Italy.”
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“An earnest, somewhat boring slice of life…Then a shocking event closes the first act and completely changes everything…Injecting the play with a shot of adrenaline that carries it through to the end…This first-rate cast does its best with the sleepy, somewhat clichéd writing…If Edelstein's staging occasionally seems clunky...it is only because he is saving up his magic for the best part. That deus ex machina is really the most compelling reason to see the show. Seriously, it's incredible."
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"‘Napoli, Brooklyn’ is, for much of its running time, a remarkably sluggish drama built around a first-act curtain so shocking that I'm a little surprised it doesn't nightly inspire an audience panic attack...Sadly, it also casts a stark light on the weaknesses of a script that is overburdened with simmering plot lines that never quite come to a boil...Making something compelling of this messy, ambitious work somehow eludes Kennedy's grasp."
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“There is too much going on, too much stereotyping, and too many characters who exist solely to make a thematic point…The cast members make the most of their roles and frequently manage to breathe authentic life into their characters. Truly, there are emotionally gripping moments...For some, this will be enough, but anyone looking for complex character development and a compelling plot are likely to be left feeling unsatisfied."
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“Edelstein draws excellent performances from all…The script is still overstuffed with issues represented by less than fully realized characters…The problem is that there's no real thread to forcefully connect all these small scenes. Consequently, 'Napoli, Brooklyn' remains a diffuse, episodic work that lacks a clear, central line of development…Unfortunately despite the exciting way the literally explosive disaster is staged the second act reverts back to stereotypical predictability.”
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"The short scenes each taking place in a different part of Park Slope are part of the problem with the new play. Told in a great many vignettes used to establish various pieces of information, the play's seven sets are all depicted on stage simultaneously. Not only does the stage seem cluttered even in Eugene Lee's skeletal set design, but 'Napoli, Brooklyn' plays like a movie script and will probably make a much better film."
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