52/100
Photo by Matthew Murphy
In the vein of recent Pulitzer prize-winning plays, Smart People is a play that announces itself as one about "ideas" from the beginning. And while these postmodern ideas on racism appear to be mostly well realized, Diamond appears to have forgotten the fact that the baseline for every good play is good dramaturgy. Ideas in search of a play is the general consensus amongst New York critics, who feel that the play seems to do nothing other than talk endlessly without any consideration as to what makes a play good at the root. Many also feel that the physical production is intensely problematic, citing problems with the scenic design, costumes, and the detached direction from Kenny Leon that prevents the play from ever taking fire like it should. Critics have nothing but praise, however, for Mahershala Ali, considering his performance to be the indisputable highlight of the play, but Joshua Jackson has come under some scrutiny for his performance, which is described as being decidedly the weakest amongst the cast. One critic (Marilyn Stasio of Variety) did find the discussions of modern racism to be interesting enough to recommend the play, but almost everyone else found that the theatre is not really the place where one would like to be lectured and suggested skipping out on this one entirely.
Update: Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal has weighted in (his column is only once a week) and he really loves it, saying that Diamond is a fantastic new theatrical voice and the play effectively tackles every issue that it tries to, though he finds the cast less than spectacular.
Update: Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal has weighted in (his column is only once a week) and he really loves it, saying that Diamond is a fantastic new theatrical voice and the play effectively tackles every issue that it tries to, though he finds the cast less than spectacular.
The Wall Street Journal 85/100
(Terry Teachout) "Not only is “Smart People” soundly constructed, but it’s intelligent and provocative enough to put you in mind of Tom Stoppard."
Variety 70/100
(Terry Teachout) "Not only is “Smart People” soundly constructed, but it’s intelligent and provocative enough to put you in mind of Tom Stoppard."
Variety 70/100
(Marilyn Stasio) "while she overindulges Brian and his stuffy lectures on that very subject, the playwright puts this incendiary topic in a realistic context, and addresses it in a refreshingly honest manner”
Time Out New York 60/100
(Adam Feldman) "although Diamond raises resonant questions, much of her spitballing hits right on the nose. Audiences may be smarter than the play seems to believe”
am New York 50/100
(Matt Windman) "Besides the characters venting ongoing frustrations about their careers and getting into meandering discussions on the presence of racism, no overall storyline develops and very little occurs for two hours and 15 minutes. It’s hard to imagine the play appealing to an audience other than the academic types that it depicts.”
Talkin' Broadway 50/100
(Matthew Murray) "The play's impersonal, almost mechanical, construction makes it difficult to care most of the time. Much of the action involves Diamond checking boxes, moving pieces around her board, and repeating the process until only the obvious Brutal Four-Way Confrontation remains."
The New York Times 40/100
(Charles Isherwood) "Although Ms. Diamond is clearly herself a powerfully smart writer, you come away from “Smart People” feeling like you’ve attended a marathon series of seminars, not a persuasively drawn drama.”
New York Daily News 40/100
(Joe Dziemianowicz) "Wherever they are — in bed, a basketball court, an audition room, restaurant, a clinic — racial and sexual tension and stereotypes hang in the air and spike the conversation. It’s terrain worth exploring. But for every scene that comes alive with humor, there are two that turn didactic.”
The Guardian 40/100
(Alexis Soloski) "Lydia R Diamond’s Smart People, at the Second Stage theater in New York City, ought to force an audience to examine its own intellectual bona fides and beliefs… Instead, this is a swirl of theories, propositions and provocations in search of a play.”
Vulture 30/100
(Jesse Green) "Diamond is more interested in addressing the complications of race as a kind of laboratory puzzle than in embodying characters that credibly exist beyond that issue. The result feels less like a play than a PowerPoint presentation”
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