Lincoln Center Festival 2009 Critical Acclaim

2009 | 2008

Life and Fate
“It wins you over with the force of its audacity.”—The New York Times
Click here to read the full article

Boris Godunov
“Mr. Donnellan uses flame and flood with the selective hand of an artist who understands that a single well-chosen detail sears itself into the imagination… I am hard pressed to think of a recent production that conveys with such magnificence the base humanness of those who would rule the world.”—The New York Times
Click here to read the full article.

Idir and Najat Aatabou
“With just his acoustic guitar and his silky voice, Idir can sing ballads that will reduce a hall to tears… it is clear that this woman was MADE to sing, and nothing was going to stop her.” —afropop.org
Click here to read the full article.

Trilogia della villeggiatura
“Like Strehler's work, the physical production is of an extraordinary beauty… How much higher a compliment can I pay Servillo than to say he lives up to Strehler's standards?”—NY Daily News
Click here to read the full article

Les Éphémères
“A vista of beauty both humble in its mundane details and immense in its emotional impact. The gray fabric of everyday life—the insistently ringing phones, the piles of mismatched objects that come to enclose and define us, the stirring of the soup pot, the opening of letters—is made to shimmer with significance and quiet intensity.”—The New York Times
Click here to read the full article.

Ivanov
“One of the richest renditions of this problematic work you'll ever see… director Tamás Ascher's staging is often hilariously farcical, especially in a scene in which Ivanov's panic over his impending nuptials sends all of the characters into a frenzy… this well-traveled production is so expertly performed that even the least significant characters make an impact.”
—New York Post
Click here to read the full article.

Les Éphémères
“Warm and no-nonsense, Mnouchkine, 70, has been shaking theatrical foundations for almost 50 years… Originally, Éphémères’s 29 interlacing scenarios came from improvisations about the end of the world. But instead of futuristic vignettes, the results revolve around bittersweet reminiscence, family and human fragility. One character sells her dead mother’s house, a transsexual eats birthday cake alone, an old woman insists that her illness is really a pregnancy. Scenes can be excruciatingly personal. ‘Different plays take different tools: an ax or a gun or a net,’ says Mnouchkine of this rare exercise in naturalism. ‘This time we needed only a stethoscope.’”
—Time Out New York
Click here to read the full article.