Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...There are moments when you don't fully believe all that you are seeing, and when the kind of heightened writing style you find on, say, "The Good Wife," goes a bit too far for live theater, where believability and vulnerability trumps all. But this is a very smart piece of writing, and if you read Grantland or have a fiance writing books in Berlin, or dream of being able to write long-form for a newly political Buzzfeed, this is your show."
Chicago Reader
- Recommended
"...When the Occupy movement erupts just down the street, at Zuccotti Park, Rose goes gooey for that too, pulling Ben in along with her. Cynical, reductive, occasionally inexplicable high jinks ensue. Director Jeremy Wechsler can't square certain elements, like Rose's wayback-machine romantic notions, but he and a great cast maintain screwball levels of energy and sensibility throughout, making the show eminently seeable. Erin Long and Alex Stein are especially engaging as the play's resident idiosyncrats."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...Director Jeremy Wechsler compounds this politeness with a straightforward and handsomely staged production. His actors turn in respectable performances, but they lack the complexity needed to make their situations moving. With today's backdrop of presidential candidates calling for political revolution and pleas to make America great again, The New Sincerity could bellow for truth and change. Instead, it unleashes an inoffensive complaint."
ChicagoCritic
- Recommended
"...Director Jeremy Wechsler leads his actors through Smith’s verbal comedy at a brisk pace. He successfully establishes the feeling that time is moving rapidly due to the excitement of the protests, and is aided by the viral online content-inspired lighting and sound design of Sarah Hughey and Sarah Putts. Adam Veness, Izumi Inaba, and Vivian Knouse have made the set, costumes, and props accurate and visually engaging. The script’s greatest strength is that it captures the thought processes of the young people who observed each other’s responses to the Occupy Movement, but its biggest problem is that it doesn’t flesh those perspectives out into characters who are complex enough to engage with emotionally. Still, The New Sincerity works as a think-piece with humor. Now is also a good time to revisit the Occupy Movement, since whatever happens with Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, it helped millennials to clarify a lot of goals and establish more effective organizations. It may even have revived the concept of sincerity."
Around The Town Chicago
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Smoothly directed by Jeremy Wechsler, this is one of those scripts where the writer may have stopped short in order to make it a one -act story. To be honest, I truly did not have any feeling for any of the characters. I thought each had their own agenda and none of them truly cared about the others they spent time with. We never meet Benjamin's fiancee, and surprise, surprise, she comes back into town after Benjamin gets involved with the protest and they have an ending that I did not see coming. I don't like spoiling a story or play so I will only tell you that the direction is smooth, the technical aspects terrific and the actors splendid. I just wish they had a better script to take them through the 90 minutes."
Chicago Theatre Review
- Recommended
"...Alena Smith’s new play, now enjoying its Midwest premiere in Chicago, is interesting, often funny and occasionally thought-provoking. However, it’s mostly the playwright’s skill at creating exciting characters and their fast-paced dialogue, filled with snide, contemporary references and unexpected humor, that bewitch us."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews
- Highly Recommended
"...“The New Sincerity” is the work of an important new voice in the American theater. The play didn’t grab me as a social statement as much as it did as an exploration of relationships among an unconventional but enticing group of characters. Erin Long was the revelation in the Natasha role that could so easily descend into silliness. A local theater is reviving “Born Yesterday” this season and I suspect that Ms. Long would be a marvel in the female lead. But at least we have her, and her three colleagues, delivering the dramatic and comic goods in this really invigorating play into next month."
Chicago Theater Beat
- Recommended
"...All in all, The New Sincerity is one of those plays that teeters between terrific and troubled. Smith does a first-rate job skewering the shortcomings of a movement without a plan, and in idealism that is rooted in hypocrisies the idealists are blind to. But her plot is wholly unlikely and her characters are often inconsistent. If you can overlook the the flaws, you’ve got a show well worth seeing and one that puts a recent chapter of history in terrific perspective."
Splash Magazine
- Recommended
"...There is a quite a lot to recommend about The New Sincerity. For starters the cast is darn near close to perfect in their portrayal of characters that in less capable hands might feel a bit one dimensional. The set, designed by Adam Veness, is also worth a tremendous amount of praise as the actors inhabit a perfectly recreated, almost impossibly airy Manhattan office. Director Jeremy Wechsler paces the material well and for the most part allows audience members to realize certain insights at the same time as the characters."
NewCity Chicago
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Smart, well-acted and slickly produced, with a soundtrack that includes Cee-Lo Green and Rihanna, "The New Sincerity" captures the spirit of an age lightly lived and easily forgotten, which strives for a significance and a magnitude that won't be easily achieved."
