The Jungle Reviews

M O'Keefe from San Francisco, California

WAY TOO LONG

The message is beautiful, and the story is interesting, but they could cut half of the screaming speeches. By the end, you feel as if you've had a stake driven into your brain. Rather than leaving the theater thinking about the idea of home and the situation of the refugees, you are simply happy to be out of the exhausting experience of that play.

Robert zimmerman from San Francisco, California

MUCH ADO...

While the cast is uniformly excellent (Ben Turner is a particular standout), the show is almost utterly devoid of anything resembling story. Rather the audience is treated to a Brechtian ‘dog whistle’ diatribe that is sadly uninvolving. I say ‘sadly’ because as another reviewer already noted, this a squandered opportunity to allow the audience to identify with the dreadful plight of people whose stories would, in better hands, be heart rending. Good agitprop theater creates empathy before trying to lead the audience to outrage. This does neither. Now it is certainly possible this show rescues itself in the second act, but I wouldn’t know. I left.

Mila Holt from San Francisco, California

SO ASSAULTIVE AND UNINVOLVING

I tried to nod off, but that was impossible given the sheer volume of the exposition hurled my way. Yes, the actors were accomplished and the staging creative. No, there was no story or character development, just archetypes Shouting, telling each other and the audience what to think. Four of us arrived excited. Four of us left exhausted. At intermission.

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