Review of The Refuge Plays at Roundabout

The Refuge Plays was a last minute addition to my New York City itinerary when I was up for covering the New York Film Festival, as when I randomly stumbled upon the premise one day when looking up what theatrical productions were going on in New York when I was in town.

I was really intrigued about the generational tale aspect of the show, and how it was centered around one Black family living in the rural countryside of Illinois. While I love consuming stories about people from urban centers, it’s these kind of stories that evade my scope.

Also, as I am under thirty, I have access to HipTix through Roundabout. Some nonprofit theaters in New York end up offering student and younger people discounts, and Roundabout specifically runs a $30 deal with no fees if you’re under a certain age.

These seats are often in the orchestra, and this was how I saw 1776 last year as well. So I purchased a ticket, added protection for $5, and showed up to my seat in Row J. It was far on the right side of the house, but I thought the view was perfect and wasn’t too angled. This is a small theater, so I do think that there might not be a bad seat in the house regardless.

Here’s my review of the show!

The story of a single family told across multiple generations.

So something to note before going into this play is that it is pretty long—over the course of three and a half hours, you’re going to really get to know the three weaving narratives, or plays, that go into these character’s lives. There are two intermissions happening at the hour and second hour mark, but, to be quite frank, I thought these intermissions made the long length drag even more.

During them the stage crew has to go put together the set for the next act, so I understand why they ended up making this decision (i.e. the first act takes place inside the family home, while the second act is more so in their backyard/shed situation). However, it did feel like an eternity before we made it to the end.

This is a series of plays about one family. Each act takes place in a completely different time period, and the story is told in reverse.

We begin in the present day, introducing the ghosts that come to haunt the family and the message that’s about to change their lives, as one of them isn’t going to live to see another day. Act II takes place many years prior, showing how the ghost of the first act grew up and ended up being his wife, Gail, who can be seen in Act I.

Act III takes place years before that and tells the story of the great-grandmother from the first two acts and how she ended up meeting her husband, building the home the story takes place in with her own hands. I think this is quite a story that tries to be an epic of its own, and I can understand why it was decided to be told the way it is. If it had started from the very beginning, we would not have had this emotional journey with the characters, and the gravity of certain decisions wouldn’t fully be understood.

However, going back to the length of this production, it started getting a little painful for me around the halfway point. I think these were important stories to tell, and we ended up getting quite a bit of humor sprinkled throughout the plot.

There were quite a few laughs in the audience I was seeing it with, as the jokes are actually pretty funny throughout. However the pace began to drag once we got into the groove of things, which implies to me I wasn’t enraptured with what I was watching. When I saw Hamlet at the Armory last year, and later the Oresteia, they were pushing four hours and I could get through them.

My favorite act personally was the first one, and my least favorite was the second act. Act II for me was the one that was painful to get through, although it wraps up some of the narratives we get in the first act, then segways perfectly into our final one as we begin to realize the lengths the great-grandmother went to make this family survive. Despite that, there isn’t much conflict driving this one by the end, which is why I think it had pacing problems. A chunk of people in my section walked out.

Overall Thoughts

I see what Roundabout is doing with the marketing for the play, and it reminds me of a more original version of the all-Black Death of a Salesman had seen last year with Wendell Pierce.

Granted, this isn’t my favorite piece of theater I’ve seen in a while, as I think it could use some trimming when it comes to the finer points and details. We don’t often get Black generational stories of this magnitude on an Off-Broadway or Broadway stage, and we need to show our support for these kinds of shows or they won’t get where they need to be.

So go see this one if it sounds interesting to you, as it definitely will take up some of your evening on a rainy day. I am glad I saw this, despite my review coming across as slightly negative at times. It is also worth noting I saw this early on in previews, which means things can and will change.

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