06/20/2025
OPENING NIGHT, TWELVE YEARS AGO, June 19, 2013.
HOPE YOU SAW ONE OF THE 120 PERFORMANCES!
Let's recall with pride some of the reviews!
“Here they are, New York, the ultimate brother-and-sister act.
Amanda Plummer and Brad Dourif don’t just strike sparks. They’re a raging conflagration. In a sensational return to the New York stage, Ms. Plummer pulls out the stops. Truly hilarious.
Acted by the right performers, as it is here, “The Two-Character Play” has a power that cuts deep."
-Ben Brantley, The New York
“In a time of cookie-cutter theater, ‘The Two-Character Play’ STANDS OUT.”
Few can do cray-cray like these two.
-The New York Post
“BRILLIANT grief and madness. Unparalleled. An ASTONISHMENT.”
-The New Yorker
“Plummer has a feral MAGNETISM.”
-Time Out New York
“Deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.”
-EDGE New York
“ILLUMINATING and accessible.”
-Curtain Up!
“Dourif and Plummer are a superb match onstage. Their performances are a perfect combination of funny and sad. An absolute must-see duo for this rarely seen Williams’ masterpiece.”
- EDGE NEW YORK
“Divine crazy from Tennessee” "weaves a compelling spell.
"Few can do cray-cray like these two."
- NEW YORK POST – Elizabeth Vincentelli
"A passionate argument for the theater as a space to re-enact our most haunting personal demons. By turns hilarious and devastating. This production is a gem."
- NYTheatre.com – Cory Conley
"Connoisseurs of eccentric and flamboyant acting might have guessed that pairing Brad Dourif and Amanda Plummer on stage would produce a highly combustible collision of tics, wild mannerisms and crazy eyes. And these actors don't disappoint in this production of a late and hellishly difficult Tennessee Williams play. This is a cold, hard play, filled with bitter truths and fear and nausea. It's very tough to take. Plummer alternates between the sweet coyness of a little girl and the madness of a homeless woman who has been out on the streets too long; Dourif does a kind of German Expressionist cocking of his head and clawing of his hands as his desperation mounts. Stalking each other around the stage like boxers hoping to get in a knockout punch and go home to some kind of relief. Dourif and Plummer create a sense of profound alienation and chilliness and the kind of nothingness we might discern in the dark at the edge of a cliff as we realize that there is no longer any ground beneath our feet. Taking in this play fully is like being out in the open sea and letting go of your life raft, treading water until you are too tired to tread water anymore."
-The L Magazine – Dan Callahan
"I could watch the fantastically frowsy Amanda Plummer for hours on end. A distillation of Williams's core obsessions: truth and fakery, an inward-turned hatred of personal weakness crossed with a bottomless tortured empathy for weak and broken things, and, atop the heap, a fierce need to grasp the authentic via the theatrical. Two actors so marvelous at feigned insanity that another layer of ambiguity has been added: Where do the performers' histrionics stop and the play's inner life begin?"
-Vulture.com – Scott
"The ardent and ravenous Plummer, returning to the New York stage after a fifteen-year absence, has lost none of the gifts that made her such an astonishment when she began her career."
- The New Yorker – Hilton Als
"Remarkable performances. Ms. Plummer clearly configures her character with unparalleled skill. Alice Walkling’s somewhat surreal set is an appropriate space for the inter-cranial conversations between sister and brother abused by and confined by fear. One of Tennessee Williams important works and one of the most important plays currently running Off-Broadway. Do not miss the opportunity to see this production."
-theatrereviews.com – David Roberts
"Amanda Plummer and Brad Dourif are apparently competing to come up with the most bizarre line readings. Plummer, one of the most gifted and most eccentric actresses of her generation, is the dubious winner, creating a character entirely out of quicksilver changes of mood. In the space of a minute or two, she can be grand, terrified, furious, whimsical, or serene; sometimes she adopts an upper-class British accent and sometimes her voice drops to a basso profundo. Collapsed on a couch, wrapped in a ratty fur stole, a tipsy tiara blocking her vision, she appears to be sending up the entire production; drawing herself up to her full height, she utters a denunciation that all but opens the doors of hell. It's riveting to watch."
-Lighting and Sound America-David Barbour
"Illuminating and accessible, The Two-Character Play somehow continues to evolve, at least in our own consciousness, both mysteriously and marvelously even without any further re-writes by Williams. Forget what you have read or heard. This play is neither cryptic nor confusing."
-CurtainUp.com – Simon Saltzman
