Review Roundup: BETWEEN TWO KNEES

Up next at the Perelman Performing Arts Center is the NY premiere of The 1491’s comedy Between Two Knees, directed by Eric Ting. 

The company features Rachel Crowl, Derek Garza, Justin Gauthier, Shyla Lefner, Wotko Long, James Ryen, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Sheila Tousey.  The understudy company includes Irma-Estel LaGuerre, Jessica Ranville, John Scott-Richardson, Kholan Studi, Ryan Anthony Williams.

Directed by Obie Award winner Eric Ting and infused with the 1491s’ boldly uninhibited comedy, this New York City premiere takes a hard look at the effects of systemic oppression long after our textbooks typically stop teaching Native history. Also, it’s funny.

 BroadwayWorld is taking a closer look at what the critics are saying about the play...

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Jonathan Mandell, New York Theatre: It’s not exactly inaccurate to describe “Between Two Knees” as a play about American Indian history told through the experience of one indigenous family over several generations, from the massacre of 1890 at Wounded Knee to the American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 (Hence the title.)   But that misses its subversively comic tone (Look again at the title, for its bawdy pun.) If there are some well-acted, genuinely poignant scenes, the show is at heart sketch comedy, mixing pointed parody with silly slapstick, and  unafraid to be sophomoric, even when depicting atrocities.

Adrian Dimanlig, Interludes: The production has been directed by Eric Ting, whose cartoonish staging dwells in spots when it should be consistently speeding along. These unfortunate lulls occasionally kill the momentum of Between Two Knees, despite the game efforts of the ensemble cast, who work tirelessly to inject the whole affair with levity and humor (especially the terrific Justin “Jud” Gauthier, who plays the evening’s wry emcee). Indeed, there’s no questioning that the folks up onstage are having a good old time, but it comes at the expense of the audience’s overarching theatrical experience.

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