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Review Roundup: LOVE + SCIENCE Premieres at New York City Center
Love + Science, a new play by playwright and scientist David J. Glass, is now running through July 6, 2023, at New York City Center Stage (ii).
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jun. 05, 2023
Love + Science, a new play by playwright and scientist David J. Glass, officially opened on June 4th, and is now running through July 6, 2023, at New York City Center Stage (ii) (131 W 55th St, Manhattan). Directed by Allen MacLeod, Love + Science centers on two gay medical students who must navigate their love, careers, and loyalties at the height of the 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis.
Set in New York City during the early 1980s, Love + Science centers on two gay medical students who connect while working in a retrovirology lab. When HIV erupts, the fallout upends their relationship as their response to the rising epidemic pushes them along different paths, raising questions about their values as scientists and doctors and their responsibilities as gay men. A sprawling drama spanning the decade, Love + Science explores the difficulties of love during a crisis, the realities of scientific progress, and how to maintain hope in the midst of an epic struggle.
Jonathan Burke (The Inheritance, Choir Boy) and Lortel-nominee Matt Walker (The Play That Goes Wrong) lead an ensemble of seven that includes Thursday Farrar (Aida, Parade, Once Upon a Mattress), Adrian Greensmith (Netflix’s Metal Lords), Ryan Knowles (The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical), Tally Sessions (Company, Anastasia, War Paint), and Imani Pearl Williams (1776).
See what the critics are saying...
Naveen Kumar, The New York Times: If the coronavirus is the playwright’s claim to timeliness, that context is left almost entirely inferred until a present-day coda attempts to draw a rushed and tenuous through line. At the performance I attended, the audience seemed to assume the show was over before its leap three decades forward. Not that the final scene offers narrative resolutions; the relationships between the characters hardly ask for any, and the future of scientific study is still unwritten.
Marc Miller, Talkin' Broadway: There have been great AIDS plays: Angels in America, of course, and The Inheritance trod similar ground with assurance, and The Normal Heart, even if much of it seemed to be Larry Kramer screaming that he was right and nobody would listen to him, had passion. That's lacking here. And Glass might have done a more effective job if he'd spent more effort on consistent characters to root for, and less time on dialogue like, "It would be interesting to see their specificity assays–maybe those proteins will pull down other antibodies." Capsule review: What Love + Science could use is more love and less science.
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