Review Roundup: DAD DON’T READ THIS At St. Luke's Theatre

Dad Don't Read This, a new play by Eliya Smith is now playing Off-Broadway at St. Luke's Theatre through May 29. Directed by Chloe Claudel, the show features performances by Drama Desk winner Amalia Yoo, Renée-Nicole Powell, Sophie Rossman, and Kayta Thomas. 

In suburban Central Ohio, four girls meet weekly for a sleepover. They talk and sleep and play The Sims, a computer game that simulates real life, on a laptop. They gossip, snack, and attempt to get drunk. They strive to fulfill their needs, struggle to understand the relationship between doing and being seen, and begin to suspect they don't have a whole lot of agency. Wait, nevermind; that's The Sims. Dad Don't Read This is about the people who know you before you know anything. See what the critics are saying...

 

Helen Shaw, The New York Times: *CRITIC'S PICK* Smith has written about young people in extremis before: Her “Grief Camp” at Atlantic Theater Company dealt with bereaved children having a good time, often in spite of their own fluctuating will. This play, though, feels like an advance. Her naturalistic dramatic voice — a still-sticky adolescent mixture of wild feeling and zoned-out alienation — comes into better focus here, thanks to the loose, swaggering realism generated by the director, Chloe Claudel.

Loren Noveck, Exeunt: Dad Don’t Read This is messy and raw and doesn’t really go anywhere, but the fierce energy of its voice and its sharply observed characters–and particularly those moments where the play’s casually realist surface cracks open to reveal a weirder sense of narrative time or a stunning, mystifying image–will keep it in my mind for a long time.

Jackson McHenry, Vulture: Dad Don’t Read This resolves, in many ways, but there’s an unfilled spot left at its center. Amid the warmth and humor of her portrait of teenagehood, Smith is touching on a cold and bracing thing. Sometimes, people, like pixels, can just flicker out.

Steven Suskin, New York Stage Review: Director Chloe Claudel harnesses the energy, makes good use of her hard-working cast, and provides some interesting moments including the movement and dance sections (with choreography by Lena Engelstein) and some fine visuals including scenes placed against the upstage wall of lights (with lighting design by Abigail Sage and Finn Bamber). You might also note that director Claudel is listed as the sole understudy for the entire cast, which is something I’ve not seen before.

Kyle Turner, New York Theatre Guide: Dad Don’t Read This is fueled by the intensity of these small moments that accumulate: how you tell your friends things, the tiny misunderstandings that create an ever-growing wedge, the petty jealousies of who hangs out with whom and when, the thrill of dancing around in your room, the feverish anticipation of hearing something new about the person at school whom you all dislike (or maybe not). It's like we're peeking into moments we shouldn’t: There’s an intoxicating danger to listening to young girls break up and make up, these tiny moments representative of the choices they make to become themselves.

Average Rating: 82.0%