Review Roundup: PUNK ROCK Opens Off-Broadway

MCC Theater welcomes film and TV star Douglas Smith, Pico Alexander, Lilly Englert, Lortel Award winner Annie Funke, Five-time Obie winner David Greenspan, Colby Minifie, Will Pullen, and Noah Robbins, to star in the New York premiere of Punk Rock, a new play by Simon Stephens and directed by Trip Cullman.

Punk Rock opens tonight, November 17, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street, NYC) and will run through December 7, 2014.

In a private school outside of Manchester, England a group of highly-articulate seventeen year-olds flirt and posture their way through the day while preparing for their A-Level mock exams. With hormones raging and minimal adult supervision, nothing can mask the underlying tension that becomes increasingly pronounced as the clock ticks towards the ultimate dismissal.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: "Punk Rock"...inspires wonder that anybody makes it to the end of adolescence. Enacted by a marvelous young cast that dares to go places most grown-ups like to forget exist, this portrait of British private-school students during exam season is one of the most piercing studies of kids' inhumanity to kids since poor Piggy snuffed it in William Golding's "Lord of the Flies."...Mr. Stephens...has the gift (or curse) of perceiving human unhappiness with an almost clinical verisimilitude, unclouded by sentimentality or sensationalism...he grounds his subjects in a calm, almost photorealist sense of the everyday, reminding us that extreme behavior is often only a degree removed from what we think of as normal...he leaves you not with answers but with a fraught eternity of questions. Any catharsis provided is strictly for grown-ups, who can at least feel relief in knowing their adolescence is behind them.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: What makes Punk Rock so riveting is Stephens' skill at peering beyond the rampaging hormones, the dangerous energy and youthful insouciance to illustrate the casual cruelty of adolescence as unease escalates into alienation and horrific violence...Stephens' language is very much his own, his pithy dialogue grounded in the naturalistic speech of social realism, with a pared-down, subtly stylized quality that makes it zing. Director Trip Cullman and his principal cast of seven tremendous young actors show an assured grasp of the play's jagged rhythms...Even if you do see what's coming, Punk Rock is far more gripping, insightful and excitingly theatrical than other recent stage treatments of the same subject matter. And a final scene involving a hospital psychiatrist (David Greenspan) raises sobering questions as to whether the violence was a result of mental disorder or merely the everyday minefield of adolescence...Whatever you get out of the play, Cullman's taut production serves as a knockout ensemble showcase for a new generation of gifted stage actors.

Helen Shaw, Time Out NY: It's fine while deploying well-written teen-melodrama clichés, but flaws come out in its bad finish -- carnage that's unearned and untruthful. The best reason to Rock is director Trip Cullman's energetic young company...The only exception is, unfortunately, the trickiest character: troubled William (Douglas Smith), whose whiplashing arc cries out for an actor with technique. The show is glossy, diverting, cynical and, in its late turn, inept at engaging with actual teenage dysfunction. Let's call it a near pass: high marks for effort but ultimately unsuited to the subject.

Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News: A familiar story can take on fresh, and even unsettling, urgency when it's told well. "Punk Rock," about beastly English students at a private high school, tells its well-tread tale bloody well. Credit a near-perfect storm of dramatic elements -- a taut script by former British teacher Simon Stephens, visceral direction by Trip Cullman, and solid acting by a young, vital cast...The finesse of the play and the exciting cast make it much more than "The Breakfast Club" with British accents or "History Boys" with wounds...Cullman made a minor mistake by having actors appear in animal masks amid blaring music during scene changes -- it's an unnecessary underscore...But those are little issues in a play that zips along zestily and ultimately lands a stealthy punch.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post: "Punk Rock" received pretty good reviews when it premiered in London five years ago. Maybe our British friends haven't seen as many teen dramas as we have, because the play will be awfully familiar to anybody who's been exposed to "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink" and other angsty high school flicks. The main update is that the violence level is in the red. Make that in the blood-red...The atmosphere is tense from the beginning, compounded by bits of aggressive punk songs playing between scenes. Stephens doesn't waste time dropping heavy-handed clues about a dramatic conclusion...Stephens doesn't endow the kids with much more than primary, clichéd characteristics, and yet Trip Cullman's production for MCC is fairly absorbing thanks to the ace young cast -- "Punk Rock" may end up spawning a new generation of stars the way "Spring Awakening" once did.

Check back in the AM for updates!

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