Did Critics Think Lisa Kron's Well Deserves a Healthy Run?

After a successful run at the Public Theater a couple of years ago, Lisa Kron's Well has hit Broadway's Longacre Theatre, where the unusually-structured piece opened on March 30. Did critics think it should have a healthy run?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

William Stevenson in his Broadway.com Review: "Lisa Kron's 'one woman show with other people in it' certainly isn't conventional or commercial, but its offbeat portrayal of a complicated mother-daughter relationship should strike a chord with audiences. And if Kron's smart, funny writing doesn't sell tickets, Jayne Houdyshell's Tony-worthy performance as her mother just might… While Kron's unusual structure or lack thereof makes Well daring, it's her affectionate portrayal of her relationship with her mother that makes the work affecting… Well may not resemble conventional dramas, but it's often hilarious, always clever and ultimately touching."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "Woe to the child who tries to confine her feelings about a parent to an outline on a note card. Well, directed by Leigh Silverman, turns out to be about the mystery of human personalities, even and especially those of the people you think you know intimately. What makes Well much more than a clever, deconstructed theatrical riff is the way it keeps surprising itself with glimpses of an emotional depth, both murky and luminous, that goes beyond any tidy narrative."

Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "Kron, the play's author and star, comes on and assures us of her intent to deal with 'issues of illness and wellness,' asking the question: 'Why are some people sick and other people are well?' Regrettably, the play does no such thing—neither Kron's writing skills nor her thought processes seem up to it… The facts of this autobiographical monologue-with-people may well be accurate, but the cartoonish tone in which Kron tells them is ludicrous. It doesn't take long for Houdyshell to hijack the play—a simple act of piracy in which the playwright becomes an unwitting co-conspirator. Houdyshell has a lovely way with a colloquial line, and can pierce through Kron's terminal jokiness with a conviction remote from Kron's farrago of an acting style."

David Rooney of Variety: "Despite its advocacy of accepting difference, this is no banal message play. A 'solo show with other people in it,' Well studiously defies categorization. It borrows as much from Pirandello as from more contemporary downtown metatheatrics to flirt willfully with chaos and derailment throughout much of the running time—only to come together with bracing clarity in the final stretch when Kron appears to have lost control of the vehicle. Of course, the anarchy is entirely artful and calculated, but in director Leigh Silverman's playfully loose-limbed production, it has the captivating air of reckless spontaneity."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "The most daring Broadway offering of the season may not be the musical about human meat pies or the comedy with cat-killing Irishmen or the drama featuring the pretty Hollywood megastar. The most audacious of all might just be Lisa Kron's Well, the disarming, good-natured, almost brutally deceptive little piece that had the nerve to contact a mainstream audience… There are times in Leigh Silverman's sly and intentionally self-conscious production when actors seem to be pushing too hard to fill the theater, but never mind. Well may seem to ramble, but it's extremely well-organized. When it feels contrived, Kron uses the contrivance to blow up the conventions of the one-person show. And if all of this sounds like work instead of pleasure, forget we said it."