Review Roundup: Broadway-Bound CLYBOURNE PARK

Jokes fly and hidden agendas unfold as two vastly different generations of characters tip-toe the delicate dance of social politics, pitting race against real estate at the crux of two seminal events - 50 years apart - in the same north Chicago house.

Clybourne Park, the rich and darkly satirical 2011 Pulitzer Prize and Olivier Award (London) winning comedy was inspired by the 1959 landmark drama A Raisin in the Sun. Clybourne Park will open on Broadway on Thursday, April 12 at the Walter Kerr Theatre (219 West 48th Street) in a production directed by Pam MacKinnon. The show just opened on Wednesday, January 25 at Center Theater Group’s Mark Taper Forum.

Visit www.CenterTheatreGroup.org/Clybourne for more information.

Charles McNulty, LA Times: Smart, abrasively funny and fiendishly provocative.  Damnably enjoyable.  A superb production. Pam MacKinnon’s sensationally acted production finds room for some haunting pathos amid all the sardonic laughs. The uniformly excellent cast, walking a tightrope between comic stereotypes and fleshed out dramatic characters, perfectly conveys Bruce Norris’ peculiar genius for making unpalatable truths a theatrical pleasure.

BobVerini, Variety: Dangerous, provocative, pulverizingly funny. Rarely in American drama have the gaps between what one wants to say, how one says it and what one really feels been as hilariously explored for dramatic effect as Bruce Norris is able to pull off here. There are secrets in this house and surprises, too, expertly managed by helmer Pam MacKinnon, in the hands of a brilliant and versatile company. All are united in the task of peeling back society’s veneer to confront the terrors lurking below the surface.

Tanner Stransky, Entertainment Weekly: It's still the same racially charged, brilliantly acted, clever show as it was before. So it should come as no surprise that the production is just as good as when EW's Melissa Rose Bernardo gave it a sterling A two years ago. She called Clybourne 'an absolute corker — a completely audacious, architecturally ingenious entertainment.' She couldn't be more right.