Review Roundup: THE GREAT PRIVATION Opens Off-Broadway

Soho Rep is presenting the U.S premiere of Nia Akilah Robinson's The Great Privation at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons. The cast includes Crystal Lucas-Perry, Clarissa Vickerie, Holiday, and Miles G. Jackson.

The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar) is a darkly comic appraisal of the value of our bodies in death, our responsibility to time, and the role joy plays in our collective resistance.

You think, we carry our ancestors with us? No. I do think there are hints they leave for us though. In our walk. Or maybe I don’t know. In the soil. I don’t know.

1832: a mother and daughter stand vigil behind the African Baptist Church in Philadelphia at the grave of a recently deceased loved one. Today, on the same grounds: another mother and daughter (alike yet not the same) work as counselors at what is now a sleep-away camp. Timelines collide, unearthing our nation’s long history of harm in the name of scientific advancement at the cost to Black bodies.

Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review: Much of the play is serious in nature, but just like that heavenly apparition, funny moments sporadically occur. Not all of the elements and themes of The Great Privation meld, nor does the patchy story conclude so much as simply stop when the characters inexplicably erupt into a Shabooya sort of roll call chant that blends into the actors’ bows. Although the playwright cannot (or perhaps chooses not to) tie together its myriad parts, The Great Privation retains interest as an ambitious if not always compelling work. For better or worse, the play represents the kind of challenging composition from a fresh voice that audiences expect from Soho Rep.

Thom Geier, Culture Sauce: At times, The Great Privation can also feel a bit diffuse and undercooked. Some scenes meander pleasantly without advancing either the story or the underlying themes, and the ending plays more like the result of exhaustion than intention. This feels like a show that could have benefited from another revision or two, to tighten its time-jumping connections and to sharpen its point of view. (There are no clear antagonists in the present day, which deprives those scenes of dramatic tension.) But I’d gladly spend more time with these characters, as authentic and engaging and alive as the talented cast has made them, and to sink into future worlds that spring from Robinson’s fertile imagination.

John Soltes, Hollywood Soapbox: The Great Privation features solid performances from its cast, especially Lucas-Perry and Vickerie, who hardly leave the stage for the intermissionless work. The two actors, along with Holiday and Jackson, seamlessly transition between the two time periods with ease, sometimes within seconds. They adopt slightly different voices and embody different characters, but again they keep the channels between the generations open, allowing influence to seep in. Robinson, who premiered this play at Theatre 503 in London, is definitely someone to watch in the theatrical space. Her ideas and perspectives are most welcome beneath the proscenium, and The Great Privation is one of the strongest plays of the spring season.

Average Rating: 70.0%