Review Roundup: The Critics Weigh In on LIGHT SHINING IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE At New York Theatre Workshop

On the heels of her acclaimed production of Hadestown on the NYTW stage and her Broadway debut with Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, three-time Obie Award winner Rachel Chavkin returns to New York Theatre Workshop with Caryl Churchill's incisive drama LIGHT SHINING IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. In 1647 England, power is shifting and, amid the chaos and confusion, revolutionaries across the country are dreaming of a new future.

The cast for LIGHT SHINING IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE includes Vinie Burrows (Walk Together Children), Rob Campbell (All the Way), Matthew Jeffers (The Mysteries), Mikéah Ernest Jennings (MASTER), Gregg Mozgala (Cost of Living) and Evelyn Spahr (The Post). Anthony Michael Lopez (Othello) will join the cast beginning Tuesday May 29, replacing Gregg Mozgala, who will depart the production to appear in the upcoming production of Teenage Dick at The Public Theater.

The creative team includes scenic design by Riccardo Hernández (Indecent), costume design by Toni-Leslie James (Amazing Grace), lighting design by Isabella Byrd(Sundown, Yellow Moon), sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman (The Rape of the Sabine Women), properties by Noah Mease (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812), original music and music direction by Orion Stephanie Johnstone ({my lingerie play}: The Concert and Call to Arms!!!!!!!!!) and stage management by Jhanaë K-C Bonnick (That Bachelorette Show).

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Jesse Green, The New York Times: Theater is a collaboration but not usually a commune. That may help explain why Caryl Churchill's "Light Shining in Buckinghamshire" - which she wrote, in 1976, after a three-week workshop with actors helping to develop the characters and scenes - is the first of her plays I've found indulgent and leaden. However wonderful it may be to perform, it's a hard slog to sit through.

Tim Teeman, The Daily Beast: Dance Nation retreats from too much animosity and burrows instead into hearts and minds, behind bold fronts and meek fronts, and ultimately provides individual portraits of the girls, and a picture of group dynamics that feel very real, if a little plodding and predictable.

Adam Feldman, Time Out New York: Attending New York Theatre Workshop's revival of Caryl Churchill's Light Shining in Buckinghamshire is like going to the restaurant of a three-star Michelin chef and being served four courses of porridge. No matter how nourishing the meal may be-how careful the boiling, how locally sourced the oats-it's disappointing.

Sara Holdren, Vulture: Writing in the Times about this revival (the theater also produced Light Shining's American premiere in 1991), Dwight Garner describes the piece as "a difficult, fervent, political play ... about bravery and optimism." Yes to those first three adjectives, but one thing that this description sidesteps - and that this production struggles to dramatize effectively - is that Churchill's play is also necessarily about extremism and failure. Chavkin and her team are passionate about envisioning Light Shiningas a #Resistance play, and in certain ways that makes sense. In other ways, the play is actually less about the light that flared up in 17th-century England than about how it burned out

David Finkle, New York Stage Review: After much research into available records (quite a bit and some quite valuable) and workshop development, they emerged with Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, which New York Theatre Workshop produced in 1991 and have now handed over to frequent NYTW director Rachel Chavkin for what is a fair-to-middling, actually puzzling revival.

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