“JENN THOMPSON, who directed TACT's perception-changing 2012 revival of Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers," HAS STAGED IT WITH AN UNDERSTATED SIMPLICITY THAT KEEPS THE HORRORS

IN PROPORTION: You'll gasp right on schedule, but mostly you'll feel an unappeasable ache of empathy as you watch Mr. Inge's characters fall one by one through the cracks of modern life.

The performances of the seven-person cast, Ms. Erbe in particular, are completely natural and unmannered, and John McDermott's set looks just like a mid-'60s apartment occupied by two people clinging by their nails to a middle-class lifestyle. If that sounds frighteningly contemporary to you,

it should: "Natural Affection" was DECADES AHEAD OF ITS TIME. WOULD THAT MR.INGE HAD LIVED TO SEE IT DONE SO WELL.”

- Terry Teachout,  The Wall Street Journal

 

“SENSITIVE…EFFECTIVE….A JOLT OF ANGUISHED TRUTH. A natural choice for TACT/The Actors Company Theatre, a fine Off Broadway company dedicated to resurrecting lost or neglected plays.”

- Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

 

“BRILLIANT. DEEP AND DARK OLD-SCHOOL DRAMA.” 

– The New Yorker

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“PACKS A BIG PUNCH…MOODY, SENSUOUS and eventually SHOCKING. Director Jenn Thompson’s well-staged revival successfully conveys Inge’s gritty poetry” 

- Entertainment Weekly

 

“CHILLING…SHOCKING. Turns into a V-8, its engine roaring into hysterical life.”

- NY POST

 

"TRAGIC PERFECTION...There are plays that bellow, that explode onto the stage and plow through the plot with more passion than subtlety, and there are plays that whisper, tip-toe through their themes and adhere firmly to the rule of the understated text. And of course, there are the plays that manage to do both - move forward with a quiet passion and subtlety, and then combust into a climax of violent revelation. William Inge's "Natural Affection," now playing at the Beckett Theatre, is one such play."

-  Edge NY

 

"TRULY DEVASTATING...The production is SO WELL STAGED AND ACTED that it is indeed well worth seeing."

-  Curtain Up

 

"HEARTBREAKING...SURPRISING....Take Jenn Thompson's fine production as your early Christmas present."

 - Peter Filichia/TheatreMania

 

"The cast of TACTs production COULD NOT BE BETTER...'Natural Affection' is DIRECTED SEAMLESSLY by Jenn Thompson. Everything that happens on stage seems to be spontaneous and yet there is always a tension of suspense if things will go in another direction."

- TheatrePizzazz

 

"EXCEPTIONAL...GRIPPING...Under Jenn Thompson's KEEN DIRECTION, this cast beautifully handles the nuances of Mid-westerners haunted by their pasts and even more fearful of their futures."

- Manhattan Digest

 

"A POWERFUL revival...SHATTERING...RIVETING...The new staging shows what the theater has been missing all these years."

- Wolf Entertainment Guide