Review Roundup: THE OLDEST BOY Opens at Lincoln Center Theater

Lincoln Center Theater's production of of Sarah Ruhl's new play The Oldest Boy, directed by Rebecca Taichman, opens tonight, November 3 in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. Featured in the cast are Ernest Abuba, Tsering Dorjee, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Takemi Kitamura, James Saito, Jon Norman Schneider, James Yaegashi and Nami Yamamoto.

THE OLDEST BOY tells the story of Tenzin, the toddler son of an American woman (Keenan-Bolger) and a Tibetan man (Yaegashi) who is recognized as the reincarnation of a high Buddhist teacher. Differing cultures contend with competing ideas of faith and love when two monks seek permission to take Tenzin to a monastery in India to begin his training as a spiritual master. His parents must decide whether to send their young son away or keep him home.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: Ms. Ruhl's drama...is among the most easily accessible from this poetic, venturesome playwright...As a champion of Ms. Ruhl's bolder forays, I'll cop to some disappointment. "The Oldest Boy" is a touching but rather tame and predictable play. And yet it is marked by Ms. Ruhl's inquisitive intelligence, clean-lined eloquence and spiky humor. It has been given a handsome staging by the director, Rebecca Taichman, trimmed in ritualistic dance sequences and luminous images evoking the natural beauty of India...With her bright, searching eyes, Ms. Keenan-Bolger...brings a sense of churning conflict to her performance that makes transparent the divide between her character's abhorrence at leaving her child in the care of strangers and her increasingly firm faith...

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: Sarah Ruhl's new play, "The Oldest Boy," is extremely imaginative and hypnotically beautiful, but the plot is a puzzler...Despite the gorgeous production helmed by Rebecca Taichman, the imperfectly resolved yarn seems suspiciously like a young mother's post-partum nightmare...Ruhl's play is an original and eloquent way of dramatizing that separation anxiety. But although the mother in the play eventually surrenders her child to the monks, her dilemma is so abruptly resolved, we never actually see the decisive moment when she overcomes her natural maternal instincts and makes that choice. No rational argument is made because, in the end, there's no logic to her choice, just a soothing mystical vision beyond all human understanding.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: It's hardly uncommon that the emotional tsunami of maternal love can inspire many mothers to believe their children are truly special beings, perhaps even divine. But in the imaginative mind of Sarah Ruhl, that primal connection yields an extraordinary story...this meditation on such intellectually unfashionable concepts as faith, destiny and spirituality is delicate and affecting. And it's impossible to imagine it receiving more ideal treatment than in Rebecca Taichman's exquisite production for Lincoln Center Theater...Ruhl uses her beguiling storytelling skills, including a porous fourth wall and elements of ceremonial dance, music and singing, to make the mother's struggle a dramatically cogent one...All of this acquires urgency, emotional veracity and unexpected humor in Keenan-Bolger's beautiful performance...It's rewarding to watch her step here into the role of a modern adult woman, facing every mother's separation anxiety with an open heart and a questioning mind.

Robert Kahn, NBC New York: As Laura Wingfield, Keenan-Bolger displayed a remarkable ability to walk a line between caution and hopefulness. It's an accomplishment she manages again here, making butter tea for her surprise visitors (James Saito and Jon Norman Schneider, both giving sweet performances), even as the potential ramifications of their visit dawn. Also displaying remarkable range: the puppet representing Keenan-Bolger's son. Tenzin, here, is a marionette-like figure controlled by three chorus members dressed in black..."The Oldest Boy" leaves you grappling with feelings about reincarnation, but this isn't just a tale for those of us questioning the existence of God. A parents' struggle between keeping a child safe, or letting him go into the world is as universal a theme as there is, and it's addressed here with grace and good humor.

Adam Feldman, Time Out NY: The bowl of lentil soup that is Sarah Ruhl's The Oldest Boy teems with a sense of its own humble virtue...Tactfully staged by Rebecca Taichman, The Oldest Boy is full of pretty pageantry, including lovely singing by Takemi Kitamura, but dampened by careful preciousness. Ruhl stunts the spiritual conflict by making it clear all along that the monks are correct about Tenzen; despite Keenan-Bolger's sensitive pluck, even Mother's love seems schematic...There is cleverness here, and even wisdom, but the subject calls for more than an East-and-West-meet-cute miracle play.

Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News: Helicopter parents' heads will spin watching Sarah Ruhl's thought-provoking meditation on motherhood, culture and cutting ties...her go-to director Rebecca Taichman guides a striking production filled with ritual, puppetry and traditional Tibetan dance. At times, the pageantry dwarfs the script's simple eloquence...Still, the work, inspired by the author's Tibetan Buddhist baby-sitter and now in its world premiere, is thoughtful and imaginative and showcased beautifully by Keenan-Bolger's vivid star turn. This Mother's circumstances are specific and unique, but speak to any parent's issues of letting go and holding tight. Audience members are left not only marveling at what she does, but also pondering what they would do.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post: Playwright Sarah Ruhl has incorporated magical realism in past shows such as "Dead Man's Cell Phone" and "Eurydice," so it's not surprising the new one shares that vibe as well. The dreamiest, most poetic touches come from Tenzin. He's represented by a boy-sized puppet and voiced by adult actor Ernest Abuba, who stands by the puppet's side. Tenzin feels oddly human for a wooden creature -- his reaction to getting his hair shaved is the show's single most emotional moment -- yet there's also something remote about him. He's almost too wise, too . . . perfect...The mother is spared skepticism, so her only option in the play is teary acceptance, which Keenan-Bolger plays with prickly sensitivity. But then Ruhl doesn't dig too deep with that character, a typical adrift American looking for meaning in an Eastern culture.

Matt Windman, AM New York: Imagine one day finding a pair of Tibetan monks at your front door and being told that your three-year-old child is in fact the reincarnation of an important Buddhist teacher, and that they want to take the child away to India immediately for intensive spiritual training...Ruhl, who has become one of the most prominent contemporary American playwrights, has received much love from both critics and audiences for her whimsical sensibility, lyrical language and vulnerable characters...In Rebecca Taichman's spare but elegant production, the child is portrayed via a life-size puppet operated by puppeteers dressed in black. Celia Keenan-Bolger is wonderful as the boy's mother, convincingly portraying her conflicted emotions and confusions without ever going over the top. While the play loses steam by act two, it does present an unusual and touching scenario with cross-cultural currents.

Jesse Green, Vulture: Her new play, The Oldest Boy, at Lincoln Center Theater, finds Ruhl returning to (and thoughtfully extending) her familiar dramaturgy, which involves likable women muddling their way through oddball situations like metaphysical Lucys...The swift theatricality of the presentation makes up to some extent for the lack of drama...Instead of "normal" scenes, most of the action proceeds by various forms of story theater: jointly narrated reminiscence, direct address, dance, prayer, pageantry...I didn't mind this lack of naturalism...I rather found it soothing, even if it also risked crossing a line into laxness...Taichman is abetted in her re-humanizing agenda by Celia Keenan-Bolger as the Mother...Keenan-Bolger is an extraordinarily "live" and legible actor, irrepressibly emotive; here she offers a kind of questing petulance that suits but also justifies the somewhat loaded schema of the childish American mother who wants to think bigger but can't...For all its sweetness, and the freedom it offers audiences to take it wherever they like, The Oldest Boy is nicer than it is gripping.

Melissa Rose Bernardo, Entertainment Weekly: ...beneath the script's far-fetched notions and the production's pageantry -- the Tibetan dances and processions, including Anita Yavich's sumptuous costumes and Japhy Weideman's opulent lighting, are magnificent -- The Oldest Boy is a story of a mother and her son...Ruhl speaks to all mothers who have ever endured a separation from their children...If the second act wanders a bit too far from the monastery -- Ruhl works too hard to draw a logical (but labored) parallel between academia and Buddhism -- the digression is easily forgiven. Lamas, religion, spirituality, Tibet, China, politics, reincarnation...all big ideas. But, as Mother explains, ''the cruel animal fact of motherhood is bigger than any idea.'' B+

Robert Hofler, The Wrap: Of course, "The Oldest Boy" is really about the education of this sweetest mother...Ruhl has a lot to say about the bonds of parents and children, of teachers and students, and how sometimes it's necessary to break those bonds to learn. Sometimes, what with all this talk about education, "The Oldest Boy" feels more like a lecture than a drama, especially in the second act when the mother is less a participant than a narrator.

Keep checking back for updates!

Photo Credit: T. Charles Erickson

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