Intimacy – Location, Tickets, Reviews
Playwright and provocateur Thomas Bradshaw, who’s known for creating shocking and taboo-shattering plays, showcases his latest work, Intimacy with The New Group at Acorn Theatre on Theatre Row. It is full of profanity, nudity, simulated sex, bodily fluids, and racism and attempts to expose the hypocrisy that resides in America’s suburbs towards sex, pornography, and race.
It is the story of three families struggling with familiar problems: children transitioning from childhood to adulthood, the death of a spouse and parent, aging, the search for love, financial difficulties, and the age-old question “What do I want to be when I grow up?” The families in Intimacy take the rather unorthodox approach of addressing their problems by filming a pornographic movie and, against all odds, this act seems to solve a lot of the problems they were having.
Maxamoo
Bradshaw and director Scott Elliot clearly tried to make their audience at Intimacy uncomfortable, and they manage to achieve that goal. That discomfort, however, is only in part due to the incestuous innuendos, long-distance ejaculations, amateur porn, and blunt racism that appear in Intimacy; what eventually creates the most discomfort is the artificiality of it all — the dialogue, the plot, and over the top acting don’t serve the message, but rather distance the audience from it.
Much ink has been spilled about this production, we’re at ten Critics’ Reviews and counting and we spent a solid 15 minutes talking about Intimacy on the Maxamoo podcast. That verbosity notwithstanding, our most important piece of advice is simple: Use caution if sitting in the front row or the “splash zone” as we like to call it.
Public Opinion
Social media is far less engaged in this show than the theater critics who wrote about it at length.
Have you seen Intimacy? What did you think? Comment below or tweet us at @Maxamoo
Critics’ Reviews
Reviews for Intimacy have been quite varied, ranging from cautiously positive review in The New York Times to utterly scathing by New York Magazine. At least Intimacy give the critics something to argue about.
New York Times
Sure, Son, I’ll Be in Your Skin Flick
New York Post
Thomas Bradshaw strikes again with X-rated ‘Intimacy’
Time Out New York
[W]ithout much cause to care about the situation or characters, limp and drypuns starting coming (sorry) to mind.
NYtheater Now
Overall, while neither as ground-breaking nor shocking as it is hyped to be, INTIMACY is still a provocative examination of contemporary American life.
New York Magazine
Painful Intimacy
New York Theater
Pornography On Theatre Row
Stage and Cinema
Masturbating in the Suburbs
TheaterMania
Thomas Bradshaw’s new play examines the kinky goings on behind the picket fences of a small suburban town
Theatre Is Easy
A bold and engaging new comedy by Thomas Bradshaw. Plus a lot of nudity.
Theater Pizzazz
I was uncomfortable in many places; my thoughts bounced around: “Am I a prude? Is this a matter of taste? Can I leave? Does this really talk about intimacy at all, or is it too graphic to be intimate?” The play and the production are effective.
TICKETS
$25-$65 (click here for tickets)
DATES
Performances through March 8, 2014
LOCATION
The Acorn Theatre, Theatre Row
410 West 42nd Street
New York City
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RUNNING TIME
2 hours 15 minutes, 1 intermission
CAST & CREW
Written by Thomas Bradshaw
Directed by Scott Elliot
Featuring David Anzuelo, Austin Caldwell, Ella Dershowitz, Laura Esterman, Daniel Gerroll, Déa Julien, and Keith Rudolph Smith