The reviews are in for The Visitors, Bryna Turner’s new play, which opened on Monday, November 9, in a Second Stage production at the Pershing Square Signature Center. Directed by Jenna Worsham, it gathers four adult siblings in a New York loft, where the youngest, Joanna, tells the others she needs a kidney and hopes one of them will give her theirs. The critics agree that it is a sharp, funny family comedy with a very fine cast, led by Mary Wiseman, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Will Pullen, Danny Wolohan and Esco Jouléy. Where they differ is on how much the contrivance of its premise, and the size of its set, get in the way.
The verdict: five reviews in, two with scores: Culture Sauce gives it 4 out of 5 and New York Stage Review 3. Everyone finds it funny, and everyone praises the cast, with Mary Wiseman and Celia Keenan-Bolger named most often. The reservations are about the machinery. Culture Sauce, TheaterMania and New York Theatre Guide all say the premise takes some swallowing, TheaterMania finds the climax forced, and New York Stage Review thinks Kate Noll’s enormous loft dwarfs the actors, the one point on which it parts company with critics who otherwise admire the set.
What are critics saying about The Visitors?
TheaterMania
"The Visitors, a Dark Comedy About Siblings"
Reviewer: Zachary Stewart
Zachary Stewart finds plenty to laugh at in a play about what siblings actually owe one another, and casts the evening as a contest between how often this family says “I love you” and what it is prepared to do about it.
"Turner wrings a laugh a minute from this dire scenario, a pitch-black comedy set in the gap between rhetoric…"
He admires Celia Keenan-Bolger, Danny Wolohan and Will Pullen, and calls Mary Wiseman the production’s secret weapon, though he thinks the script strains toward its farcical climax in ways that director Jenna Worsham cannot always smooth over.
New York Stage Review
"Playing the Organ"
Reviewer: Michael Sommers · 3 out of 5
Michael Sommers likes Turner’s neatly written conversations and the persuasive performances, with a word for Esco Jouléy’s wry good humor as Naomi, though he thinks that character is written close to cliché.
"The Visitors is a relatable comedy-drama, with minor reservations…"
His larger objection is the staging: on the wide, deep Irene Diamond Stage, Kate Noll’s vast and busy loft leaves the actors looking swallowed up, and he suspects a smaller room would serve the play better.
Culture Sauce
"Bryna Turner’s Kidney Dramedy"
Reviewer: Thom Geier · 4 out of 5
Thom Geier calls it a well-crafted dramedy about a family of squabbling solipsists, and he is the warmest about the cast: Keenan-Bolger always grounded, Pullen wonderfully prickly, Wolohan touchingly bewildered.
"Turner has a knack for writing comedic banter with an underlying emotional component…"
He concedes that the premise is forced, but credits Worsham’s sure-handed direction, above all in a dinner scene that teeters between tragedy and farce, and says the play’s honesty and humor make the visit worthwhile.
New York Theatre Guide
"How far would, or should, you go for family?"
Reviewer: Allison Considine
Allison Considine notes that the premise asks a lot of an audience’s belief, and decides the layered story repays it.
"Turner’s clever script takes audiences on an unexpected journey, encouraging them to suspend disbelief and question their assumptions."
She singles out Wiseman’s performance as the youngest sibling, finds the ensemble always in sync, and admires both Noll’s lived-in apartment and the deftness with which Worsham handles the play’s bait-and-switches.
Read Allison Considine’s full review at New York Theatre Guide
Talkin’ Broadway
Reviewer: James Wilson
James Wilson suggests the title belongs on a horror or science-fiction film, and finds a family drama that delivers its own kind of dread.
"Searingly funny and incisively acted, the Second Stage Theater production shows that psychological terror can assume the most mundane form…"
He credits Turner with making familiar sibling archetypes genuinely complex, praises Noll’s set and Ásta Bennie Hostetter’s costumes, and ends on a caustic, moving play that still allows its characters a glimmer of hope.
Production photographs by Joan Marcus.
For more on the production, see our story on Celia Keenan-Bolger and Esco Jouléy in The Visitors, and for what the critics made of another of this week’s openings, see our roundup for Here There Are Blueberries at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
The Visitors is playing at Second Stage’s Irene Diamond Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, through December 6.
