Breaking the Story 2024
Opened: June 4, 2024Closing: June 23, 2024
Breaking the Story - 2024 Off-Broadway History , Info & More
Tony Kiser Theatre
New York
As a foreign war correspondent, Marina (Maggie Siff) has put her life on the line to illuminate the darkest corners of humanity. Having just returned from a particularly bloody conflict, she flirts with staying home for good—alongside her cameraman turned lover (Louis Ozawa). With her closest friends and family gathered on the eve of her lifetime achievement award ceremony, she decides to cap this glorious moment with an elopement. But as Marina tries to take hold of her life, she’s forced to reckon with the hold war has on her.
BREAKING THE STORY is a darkly funny and fiery drama about the cost of war and the audacity of those frontliners armed with only a press badge.
Breaking the Story - 2024 - Off-Broadway Cast
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR Breaking the Story
Review: In ‘Breaking the Story,’ Maggie Siff’s TV War Reporter Lives With Scars
3 / 10
Jo Bonney’s flat, face-value staging only underscores the glibness of the script (the overarching it-was-only-a-death-dream conceit apparently gives Scheer the freedom to indulge in clunkers and cliches). The Second Stage Theatre production design is crisp and mostly effective, with Cho’s prim deconstruction of a grassy lawn and appalling detonations simulated by Jeff Croiter’s harsh lighting and Darron L. West concussing sound effects. The overqualified cast does what it can with a flimsy dramaturgical conceit. You feel for them. When a show squanders Halston, Carr, Ashe, and the magnetic Siff in such pseudo-topical trifle, it’s a criminal misuse of great women—even if it doesn’t rise to a war crime.
BREAKING THE STORY: WAR IS HELL, AND SO IS REMEMBERING IT
6 / 10
One of the problems with the play, which never seems to find a consistent tone or narrative coherence. Periodically throughout the lighthearted interactions among the characters, Marina experiences memories of past traumas, conveyed by the sound of numerous loud explosions that might induce PTSD in audience members as well. There are also flashbacks to her wartime experiences, including a sad encounter with a refugee (also played by Halston.) More confusingly, some scenes are repeated, as if Marina is suffering from déjà vu, and others feature characters talking about her as if she wasn’t there, to which she reacts with understandable annoyance. Later on, yet another character briefly appears: Fed (a dashing Matthew Saldivar), Marina’s ex-husband and fellow war correspondent who now wants her back.
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Photos: Inside Opening Night of Second Stage's BREAKING THE STORY
by Bruce Glikas - June 5, 2024
by Bruce Glikas - June 5, 2024
Second Stage Theater just celebrated opening night for the world premiere of Alexis Scheer's BREAKING THE STORY, directed by Jo Bonney. Check out photos from inside the big night!
Review Roundup: Alexis Scheer's BREAKING THE STORY
by Nicole Rosky - June 5, 2024
by Nicole Rosky - June 5, 2024
Second Stage Theater just celebrated opening night for the world premiere of Alexis Scheer's BREAKING THE STORY, directed by Jo Bonney. Check out what the critics are saying about the new play.
Breaking the Story History
Other Productions of Breaking the Story
| 2024 | Off-Broadway |
Second Stage Off-Braodway Premiere Off-Broadway |
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