Pre-Existing Condition Off-Broadway Reviews

Nyong’o is playing A until September 26, after which the role will pass among a succession of other actresses: Phillipa Soo, Susannah Flood, Hari Nef, Edie Falco, and Whitney White. (The previous run of Pre-Existing Condition did the same, with Tat...

Nyong’o is playing A until September 26, after which the role will pass among a succession of other actresses: Phillipa Soo, Susannah Flood, Hari Nef, Edie Falco, and Whitney White. (The previous run of Pre-Existing Condition did the same, with Tatiana Maslany, Julia Chan, Deirdre O’Connell, Tavi Gevinson, and Dizzia herself in the lead.) Though that format makes it difficult to offer a judgment of how the production will play in future weeks, the awareness that A will be portrayed through new actresses in new iterations gives Pre-Existing Condition another point of open-ended resonance.

There are select moments — like when A and a kind male friend (Greg Keller) listen to ignored voicemails, or when she and an old acquaintance discuss what success means — where the play’s ambition and execution are more tantalizingly close. You...

There are select moments — like when A and a kind male friend (Greg Keller) listen to ignored voicemails, or when she and an old acquaintance discuss what success means — where the play’s ambition and execution are more tantalizingly close. You can imagine a more defined set of people and circumstances that are more than tenuously connected. There’s thematic potential to the notion that A is unmoored, but the play shouldn't be, too.

Lupita Nyong’o is a person of great natural grace, which might give a different spin on A than the actors who will succeed her. In the face of the lawyer’s blunt lack of interest, or the friend who tells her to move on, she seems less than humil...

Lupita Nyong’o is a person of great natural grace, which might give a different spin on A than the actors who will succeed her. In the face of the lawyer’s blunt lack of interest, or the friend who tells her to move on, she seems less than humiliated, putting on a face that’s not quite dignity; something closer to bland courtesy. But there are moments in “Pre-Existing Condition” – moments of fury — that transcend any particular performance, and that defeat the playwright’s apparent effort to make this a study, rather than a howl.

She also learns to reframe the central question of what she wants. Is it money? Revenge? Sympathy? To just get over it already? For Ireland, the act of writing this play — of giving voice to women who find themselves in similar impossible circumsta...

She also learns to reframe the central question of what she wants. Is it money? Revenge? Sympathy? To just get over it already? For Ireland, the act of writing this play — of giving voice to women who find themselves in similar impossible circumstances — suggests another path forward. Where shadows and nuance blur your vision, shed a searingly bright ray of light.

Nyong’o’s inherent youthfulness and regality renders her somewhat of an entitled millennial, rocked by the first bad thing to ever happen to her. It’s leagues away from Falco’s humiliation at being put through this at a later stage in life. B...

Nyong’o’s inherent youthfulness and regality renders her somewhat of an entitled millennial, rocked by the first bad thing to ever happen to her. It’s leagues away from Falco’s humiliation at being put through this at a later stage in life. Both, the script demands and Ireland knows, must confront that shame.

A poignant study of a modern American woman dealing with emotional and social troubles in the aftermath of domestic assault, Pre-Existing Condition scored enthusiastic reviews in its premiere at the Connelly Theater in the far East Village in 2024. D...

A poignant study of a modern American woman dealing with emotional and social troubles in the aftermath of domestic assault, Pre-Existing Condition scored enthusiastic reviews in its premiere at the Connelly Theater in the far East Village in 2024. Directed again by Maria Dizzia, Marin Ireland’s quietly insightful drama opened Monday at Greenwich House for a limited engagement extending into the new year at the 199-seat theater.