"That was never the problem with Jane Wagner’s play; it bristles with barbed insights that have kept me nursing the beautiful bruises for 35 years. And the good news is that in the revival that opened at the Shed on Tuesday night, starring Cecily Strong and directed by Leigh Silverman, many of those barbs are as piercing as ever, breaking the skin of American optimism. Wagner’s existential one-liners amount to a Rosetta Stone of sardonic comedy, an overlooked source of stylings typically attributed to men like Steve Martin, Steven Wright and Will Eno."
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"This mostly comedic multicharacter showcase was created by Jane Wagner in 1985 for her longtime partner, the brilliant Lily Tomlin, who performed it to hosannas on Broadway and beyond. Some of the material now seems worn, though, and on Strong it doesn’t quite fit, at least not yet; it’s baggy in some places, squeezy in others, and it rarely looks very comfortable."
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"Not to mention, The Search for Signs is a love letter to live theatre, too, that couldn't have come at a better time. When else would we believe that an umbrella hat-wearing, homeless, "crazy" woman is a time-traveling mouthpiece for the human condition? When we hear that woman talk about how the aliens behaved when she took them to the theatre. "They said it wasn't the play that gave them goosebumps, it was the audience," she says. "To see a group of strangers sitting in the dark, laughing and crying about the same thing, just knocked them out." Suddenly, nothing about the play, about aliens, about human connection seems crazy at all. The inimitable power of theatre to reinforce our shared life is something that, by simply sitting in a theatre to watch The Search for Signs, we discover to be true."
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'For the remount, Tomlin and Wagner and director Leigh Silverman have chosen Saturday Night Live’s versatile, wonderful Cecily Strong to play Tomlin’s part — a casting choice that seems, on paper, to make perfect sense. Instead, it’s a trap. Strong has been lured into decaying material that now works like a tar pit: The more she struggles, the deeper she falls...Built for Tomlin, a performer who commands her audiences, Universe needs Strong to have more confidence, more reserve, more mystery and secret knowledge. Instead, her eyes plead, and her attempts to rally the room seem desperate. She doesn’t get much help from the production either."
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"The show, in which Tomlin cycled through a dozen characters, from a philosophizing bag lady to a status-obsessed socialite, was a feminist landmark and cemented Tomlin as a virtuosic comedic talent. (Her performance was captured in a 1991 film version.) Now another master impressionist is taking it on: Cecily Strong, of “Saturday Night Live” and “Schmigadoon!” Strong is a worthy successor to Tomlin, infusing even obnoxious characters with a warm, beguiling core."
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"All the more disappointing then that The Search…, executive produced by Tomlin and Wagner and opening tonight at the spiffy Hudson Yards venue The Shed, often feels so flat, a casualty of material that once seemed utterly fresh and of-the-moment but now, despite a few feeble attempts at updating, comes off as something of a relic. Characters that occupied prime turf in the ’80s zeitgeist – Second Wave feminists newly daunted by the have-it-all quest, a CBGB-era Patti Smith-esque punk poet, pre-hook-up-app Times Square sex workers and even an aerobics fanatic – a timestamped signifier if ever there was one – have long since lost their edges."
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'She is totally up for the challenge: After a decade on SNL, Strong has honed the skills that make her such an appealing and gutsy comedian. Her forte is the absurdly assured lady who refuses to let anything get in the way of making her unhinged point. At the same time, in that recent fusillade of bonbons, Schmigadoon!, Strong got to show her sensitive, romantic side as a modern woman trapped in a world of musical-theater clichés. Brashness and vulnerability are key ingredients in Strong’s very winning and limber performance."
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"While one can appreciate Strong’s enthusiasm and energy, she does not possess the heightened individuality, whimsicality, and physicality (as demonstrated by Tomlin in the film version, which can be found on YouTube) in order to pull off this very challenging and demanding piece, which requires switching back and forth between a dozen characters. Due to a lack of precision, it is occasionally difficult to follow the show or figure out who she is playing."
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