Adapted by Marie-Helene Estienne from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
Directed by Peter Brook
Synopsis: The Grand Inquisitor takes place in Seville during the Inquisition. Christ, in his infinite mercy, returns to the world of man in human form and enters the burning streets of the city, where, the previous day, the Grand Inquisitor had sent a hundred heretics into the flames. The Grand Inquisitor has Christ imprisoned and asks, "Is it you? You?"
NEW YORK TIMES:
"... this 50-minute play offers little in the way of revelation. Instead it asks us only to listen again, closely, to a story many have heard before and, presumably, to consider its implications in the world that exists more than a century after it was written. "
Read the whole review HERE.
THEATERMANIA:
"It's not an easy 50 minutes to sit through -- and many patrons may be wise to choose not to do so -- but this monologue proves to be a rapt and challenging experience, thanks in large part to the work of Bruce Myers as a 16th-century cardinal confronting the returned Jesus (Jake M. Smith, barefoot and bearded, in a totally silent performance). "
Read the whole review HERE.
VARIETY:
"As delivered by a magisterial Bruce Myers lecturing a mute Christ, the harsh but brilliantly argued critique of the bedrock positions of Christian theology lands with a shock."
Read the whole review HERE.
NEWSDAY:
"Speaking of mavericks, director Peter Brook is back with another of his astonishing yet simple, radical but accessible and riveting experiments in basic storytelling."
Read the whole review HERE.
BACKSTAGE:
"The cachet here is the Brook name, particularly as we see his work so rarely on these shores. Even a potentially dry evening such as this one is in his hands thoughtful and shrewd. "
Read the whole review HERE.
|
