Broadway Review Roundup: HIGH!

Two-time Golden Globe® winner, Academy Award® & Tony Award® nominee Kathleen Turner returns to Broadway this spring as "Sister Jamison Connelly" in HIGH, a new play written by Matthew Lombardo and directed by Rob Ruggiero. Previews begin on Broadway on March 25 and the official opening is tonight, April 19th, 2011.

HIGH also features Tony Award® nominee Stephen Kunken (Enron) as "Father Michael Delpapp" and Evan Jonigkeit making his Broadway debut as "Cody Randall".

HIGH explores the universal themes of truth, forgiveness, redemption and human fallibility. When Sister Jamison Connelly (Turner) agrees to sponsor a 19 year-old drug user in an effort to help him combat his addiction, her own faith is ultimately tested. Struggling between the knowledge she possesses as a rehabilitation counselor and a woman of religious conviction, she begins to question her belief in miracles and whether people can find the courage to change. Did the show live up to high expectations? Find out now!

Charles Ishwerwood, The New York Times: "High," directed by Rob Ruggiero, isn't a particularly subtle or deep drama, despite some fancy narration... But it does afford Ms. Turner's fans a choice opportunity to bask in her undeniable star wattage. Her performance as the tough but troubled Sister Jamie is funny, consistently entertaining and at times satisfyingly hammy.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: For a while, the generational and cultural clash between this self-destructive throwaway child and the big-hearted nun are genuinely engaging. But while Sister Jamison is a colorful character, she's too limited in dimension to make serious demands on Turner. The other two characters are even more insubstantial...Even against that big night sky, a star needs some incentive to shine.

Mark Kennedy, Associated Press: The play is helped by two stunning performances - by Turner, who pretty much never leaves the stage, and Evan Jonigkeit, making his Broadway debut as the addict Cody. Watching these two angry, broken, world-weary animals circle each other is an uncomfortable pleasure...[Turner] is the play's fairy godmother and soul.

Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal: Was Kathleen Turner ever an actor? Maybe, but she's not one anymore. All she does nowadays is waddle onstage and hawk the self-parody that long ago became her stock in trade..."High" is playing next door to Stephen Adly Guirgis's "The Motherf**ker With the Hat," a comedy about addiction that is as bluntly funny and crisply written as "High" is false and manipulative. If you're looking for a good time, be sure to pick the door on the right.

Howard Shapiro, The Philadelphia Inquirer: The role demands everything he can give (and includes a defiant scene of onstage nudity), and there's no other way to say it - Jonigkeit is an intense theatrical force...High suggests no easy or comforting answers, which makes it a bold offering for Broadway. Its characters may suffer, but the searing play suffers from nothing - and includes a cast whose work is as indelible as High itself.

Scott Brown, New York Magazine: As the show's bathos emissions rise and rise to thyroid-killing levels...[the show] would be in a church basement or the sanctuary of some some mega-tabernacle. Which is where High, minus a few dozen of Turner's f-bombs and all references to sodomy, might be heading soon, too, and maybe where it was meant to be all along.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: Turner's trenchant performance, and that of gifted newcomer Evan Jonigkeit, elevate Matthew Lombardo's three-character drama, High, above the level of its tritely sensational movie-of-the-week plotting and boilerplate construction...Turner exposes the character's deep well of compassion and the festering wounds of her self-reproach. Too bad the writing isn't sufficiently nuanced to make her calvary more affecting.

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