Review Roundup: THE HOLES Off-Broadway at The Wild Project

THE HOLES officially opened on September 22 at Wild Project in New York City. The limited engagement runs through October 18. Read the reviews here!

THE HOLES is set in a decaying bar in a rapidly gentrifying city upstate, where a padlocked back room offers pleasure, relief, and perhaps something far more dangerous. A chilling dark comedy about the great wars shaping our future, the play sets shame against desire, tradition against progress, and community against individualism.

The production marks Max Wolf Friedlich's return to Off-Broadway following the breakout success of JOB, which premiered at Soho Playhouse in 2023 before transferring to Broadway's Helen Hayes Theater in 2024. Directed by Michael Herwitz, THE HOLES was developed with dramaturg-producer Hannah Getts and will be produced by Getts, Russell Kahn, and Adam Rodner. Robert Pattinson will executive produce via his production company, Icki Eneo Arlo, marking the company's first foray into theater.

Loren Noveck, ExeuntNYC: I’m interested in the play about how Martha and Carson continue to survive in a town once the Wesleys show up and try to take over; in the play about how Joey got out but never got away. But in The Holes as it is, the Beavis and Butthead of it all never left me.

Amelia Merrill, New York Theatre Guide: That the mystery behind The Holes isn’t terrifying so much as it is silly isn’t a problem: Anything can feel life-altering and scary when treated with so much reverence, and if the play had leaned into the ridiculous the whole time, I would’ve been happy to dive in headfirst. Sound designer Brandon Bulls and composer Zack Villere do their best to make the everyday feel ominous with their confidently creepy effects, but those effects need to be played for more than just scene transitions to cement the play’s tone.

Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times: One more caveat: “The Holes” has an ambitious ending that is extremely tricky to achieve. It doesn’t pull that off, either on the page or on the stage. But I’m betting you won’t mind much. This is a strange and surprising yarn, meticulously unspooled. And that is more than plenty.

Jackson McHenry, Vulture: So if The Holes has a great hook and a strong engine, why does it often feel as if it is idling in place? As good as Friedlich is at crafting a superstructure of pitch and theme, he’s less sure about filling in the details of character and pacing. His director, Michael Herwitz, who also worked with Friedlich on Job, directs the play with an eye toward naturalism, as when the play starts with a slow, simmering encounter between Weiler’s Joey and Coleman’s big-city interloper on a cold winter night, or when Joey and Martha go back and forth talking about the bar’s good old days.

Average Rating: 65.0%