“There’s a core of honest emotion at the center of Jeff Talbott’s ‘The Gravedigger’s Lullaby.’ That isn’t enough to redeem this new play’s problems, but it fuels a few poignant scenes in this fablelike story…The cast members handle the script with deftness…That script could stand to trim some self-conscious poeticism and to smooth a few uneven plot points…Some parts of ‘The Gravedigger’s Lullaby’ are often skewed. But its heart is always in the right place.”
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"A timeless tale…Two parts ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and one part Tennessee Williams…Koch inhabits this character with a gruffly sad gravitas that is part teddy bear, part dangerous, and quite honest. His scenes with coworker and fellow gravedigger Gizzer are perhaps the most captivating…These moments felt effortless…If you have an opportunity to see ‘The Gravedigger’s Lullaby,’ I highly recommend you do. It has highly relatable moments, some of joy and deep desperation.”
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"The bones of great drama are there, but the execution is stolid and sluggish, a problem sometimes exacerbated by Thompson's direction...The playwright has avoided any details that would ground the action in a specific reality. Similarly, the characters are lacking in shading...Whenever the actors get an opportunity, they seize it with gusto...Gripping scene-by-scene yet a little dull in its overall effect, an unsatisfying, yet startlingly different, work from a still-developing playwright."
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"With both script and production design sidestepping temporal specificity, the play has a sense of universality that works quite well...Thompson's exquisite collaboration with her actors ensures that what's in the interstices of the dialogue and the silent sequences of the production is poetic, theatrical, and powerful...The well-calibrated pace of what the actors do when they're not talking brings a sense of real life, with its ups and downs, yet keeps things from becoming wearisome."
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"Emotionally involving due to its engaging performances, but ultimately unsatisfying because of its oddly, strategic lack of specificity, 'The Gravedigger’s Lullaby' is a grim, kitchen-sink drama...Playwright Jeff Talbott offers an overall well-written and plotted social drama that detours into a strident political battle over capitalism...The flawed script is energized by the impeccable production elements...Director Jenn Thompson’s staging is accomplished."
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"There are believable, deep, layered human stories revealed by playwright and four stalwart performers, honed with subtlety and deliberate pacing under Jenn Thompson’s firm directorial hand...The world, in this production of this splendid play, is specific, charming, fearsome, intimate and haunting...Class divisions are tested by human tragedy but rigidly reassert themselves. Sex and physical risk and fear and redemption all combust and resolve, in under two hours. A marvelous creation."
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"The conflict between the barely surviving gravediggers and the privileged Charles...reminds us of that between what we now call the 1% and the 99%. This, though, doesn't seem Talbott's purpose, which appears to be the revelation of how, even in the direst circumstances, love...can survive and even flourish...'The Gravedigger's Lullaby' is a minor genre piece that generally achieves what it sets out to do. If only that red herring didn't swim into view toward the end."
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"Mr. Koch makes you feel for Baylen....Mr. Lawson brings the pain of never having escaped loss, combined with humor. I have long loved Mr. Beck’s work and, here again, he allows you to see a human side of someone who has more than everyone else...Jenn Thompson’s direction holds this piece together. She allows the pacing and the character study is fleshed out...Talbott’s script has some elements that need a little more subtlety, but there are easy ways to fix that."
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