The Price of Thomas Scott NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (134)
See it if Great production of a very dated show. Mint always does great casting. The show was very slow but the issue was the play not production.
Don't see it if You want silly, fun or a fast moving show or something contemporary:
See it if you like underwhelming scripts of early 20th century plays. Not sure why this was produced, other than the fact that it’s a revival.
Don't see it if you seek stimulating, entertaining theater. The production is very good, but without a good script it’s bo-ring.
See it if nice costumes, good acting. I was expecting little more Selfridge style acting and energy.
Don't see it if very slow, takes forever to get to the point, low energy, the ending should have been something more than it was, perhaps more emotional?
See it if you adore remounts of older outstanding plays
Don't see it if you dislike older plays
See it if you love dated period morality plays. (Some of the acting WAS good despite the very dated material.)
Don't see it if This is a slow moving, slight play that is hard to relate to.
See it if Enjoy beautifully staged old plays that you have never seen before. The morals of the tale are right out front, well done with the original
Don't see it if You don’t want to see a play from early 20 th Century lovingly restored.
See it if you want to see another rare, lost play by a mostly-forgotten playwright, lovingly & elegantly produced by Mint; u want a 1913 Footloose.
Don't see it if you're in it for the play itself. [The play is overstuffed, flimsy & implausible. The production is saved by wonderful acting & directing.] Read more
See it if you want to see a slice of life in 1913 of a family all involved in a drapery shop where the father is riddled with religious prejudice.
Don't see it if if you don't want to see a slice of life in 1913 of a family whose deeply prejudiced, religious father upsets their future and their lives.
Critic Reviews (22)
“Baker’s drama is not very good...Under Bank’s sympathetic but listless direction, the show feels both overstuffed and undernourished...At a trim hour and a half the evening leaves little time for the characters to be fleshed out or the actors to truly shine. And while the show brings up tantalizingly thorny issues of faith, hypocrisy, sacrifice, and selfishness, they are like dark clouds hovering above the story without ever breaking into a full-fledged dramatic storm.”
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“The audience's temptation is to project the moral standards of our post-‘Footloose’ world onto Scott...But I'm willing to accept that we're supposed to sit a little longer with the question that Baker poses in her dialogue...Unfortunately, not much of that intellectual or emotional tension remains inside ‘The Price of Thomas Scott’ itself...By the end of this moral back-and-forth, I couldn't help but wish that Hartley had just gone full Kevin Bacon and settled it all on the dance floor."
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"The finely-acted production is attractively designed for its Edwardian period by Vicki R. Davis and Hunter Kaczorowski, and though the two-act play has been trimmed to an intermission-less ninety minutes, The Mint's traditional style of presenting older works in their original context, barring contemporary interpretations, remains true, making 'The Price of Thomas Scott' a very engaging introduction to a rarely-heard theatrical voice."
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"A fascinating curio from another time, its revival here yet another feather in the Mint Theater Company's multi-feathered cap...The marvelous actor Donald Corren has wisely decided to play Thomas Scott not as a sour, dyspeptic prig...Corren is far too skillful and intelligent an actor to have fallen into that trap...The only significant flaw in this play: The narrative suffers from the fact that the action is entirely confined to the back parlour of Thomas Scott's shop."
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“Relatively subdued in terms of dramatic action, ‘The Price of Thomas Scott’ is a thoughtful, neatly crafted study in personal convictions that is reminiscent of John Galsworthy’s works. Serious students of drama will especially appreciate this quiet yet interesting play...Bank, the Mint’s producing artistic director, gives the drama a well-paced staging that is solidly performed by an eleven-member company.”
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“When is a man completely out of step with his own time and standing in the way of progress? If the Courtneys do not buy his shop they will buy another one down the road, so that he is not keeping them out of the community. It will also make it more difficult for him to sell in the future. It is difficult for a modern audience to side with or care about Thomas Scott, considering when one sees the harm it will do his worried wife and the careers of his children.”
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“By paring the script down to the under two-hour single act format favored by today's audiences, the questions Ms. Baker posed—but intentionally left without a conclusive ending— are likely to kick up questions relevant to the ethical dilemmas faced by these characters' present day counterparts...While the actors all fit their parts well, the men fare best, especially Donald Corren as the titular main character and Mitch Greenberg as Wicksteed.”
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"It's not a great play, especially compared to other works that the Mint has produced recently, which are often surprisingly relevant to the modern day. This one feels more of its time...Conversations about morality are not exactly the stuff of riveting drama. That said, dance numbers choreographed by Tracy Bearsley liven things up and the production values are high, as one can always expect from the Mint."
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