My+NYT+Review

Maria Flores THEA 2000 Review of Play review 20 February 2016

"Fade" Review  In his review of "Fade" for the New York Times, Alexis Soloski, expresses his dislike for predictable parables. Initially, he gives a detailed summary of the plot, which intrigued me due to the background of the characters. As a Mexican-American, I was able to identify with the lead character Lucia, and her struggles to progress in a foreign country. Soloski focused much of the review on the relationship between Lucia and Abel, the lead characters, which sort of made it a point that there wasn't much more to the play. He praises the playwright for providing the audience with such a conversational dialogue, "it almost feels personal," he stated.  He also explained the complicated relationship between the characters at the beginning of the play, but expressed his disappointment as Lucia and Abel seemed to grow less rather than more complex as the play unfurled. According to Soloski, the play doesn't take enough romance or comedy risks, and the audiences are simply left with a predictable story about ethnic solidarity between two friends. Something I appreciated from this review was the use of pictures and videos to provide a better understanding of the production. As Soloski described the setting and background of the play, he provided us with a video of a scene from the play. The video helped to create a mental picture of the story's setting, he made no mention however, of the lighting or sounds used in the play which would have been helpful to visualize the environment of the theater. Overall, Alexis Soloski used an interesting approach, by involving the audiences in the lives and thoughts of the characters. He did a great job at describing the plot of the story, but ultimately lacked information on the quality of the acting. By solely reading his review, I wouldn't be able to make the decision on whether to buy tickets or not. I also think that his dislike with the unfolding of the story was very opinionated, and made it hard for him to focus on the positive aspects of the play. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/theater/fade-review.html?rref=collection%2Fdu-guide-theater%2Ftheater-guide