Young War
 SAN FRANCISCO FRINGE FESTIVAL AUDIENCE REVIEWS
HOME / FRINGE PLAYS / TO REVIEW A PLAY / RECENT REVIEWS
CLICK HERE FOR RECENT REVIEWS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

CLICK ON PLAY FOR AUDIENCE REVIEWS FOR THAT PLAY

Abducted
Action!
Asian for Dummies
Ball and Daisy Chain
Can You See Me?
Certain Things...
Chinese Clown Cabaret
Cincinatti
Come Fly With Me Nude
Comedy on the Square
divagation
Faker
Flame and the Stone
Flower Murderer
Framework
Future Folkloric
Hollywoodland
Home/Darkness
Hooray for Speech...
It's Stupid to Steal...
Late Night With God
Long-Form Improv &...
m.i. blue's TWILITE...
Magic @ the Fringe
Moliere Than Thou
nEO-sURREALISTS Present
Other American Stories
Oui Be Negroes
PAIN
Quarter Into It
Rabbit Causes Dog
Rap Canterbury Tales
Reframing the Hourglass
Short and Sweet...
some life
Subhuman-True Tales...
This Love Train...
Thrilling Adventures...
Tonight: The Harsh …
Under the Counter...
Viva Karaoke!...
Viva Vivi
Wrestling an Alligator
Young War
Zeppelin Beach Improv
 

Play: Young War
Reviewer: sandy w
Reviewer Email: ginger_altoids@hotmail.com
Rating: 5 Stars
You must see this show! It's beautiful


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Sean Owens
Reviewer Email: oddbynature@hotmail.com
Rating: 5 Stars
Breathtakingly beautiful theatre, with writing that seems both rummaged from a Scrabble sack and plucked from Moriarty's library. Incredible, brave, cunning and entrancing performances all around. I was already a fan of BB&B, and thought I knew their tricks. I thought wrong. You will reference this play as a turning point in your emotional development, and your future inability to commit to anyone.


Play: Young War
Reviewer: TJ
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 4 Stars
A Wonderfully Absurd Sexual Poetry Play that resembles Sartre's "Waiting for Godeau" but substitutes the absurditity of human sexuality for the absurdity of organized religion


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Kensek
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 2 Stars
I wanted to enjoy the Young War. I really liked a previous production from the creators of this show, Gulag Ha Ha. Time. I wasn’t touched. I wasn’t moved. I was bored. Uninspiring show, which partially delves into the clash between the successes. They were the least wooden during the bows. Even if the woodenness was intentional during the performance. Breaking eggs? Huh? Hula hoop? Huh? Rather than being caught up in the intensity of one character being pushed to the floor, my reaction was, “oh, they’re trying to be intense here.” Much of the action is just “dialog” with the actors all seated at a table. Time. If you have a spare hour between shows you plan to see, consider this. Otherwise, take a pass and wait for the next production. If you go to the show, you understand “Time”


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: OneHotCynic
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
This show is so rich and bold that you may not know what's hit you until hours afterwards. Sophisticated toilet humor, terse moments of physical theatre, aggression, and poetry (oh, such poetry) blend into a dense melange of reeking mindhash that is genuinely poignant, very funny, and at times disturbingly violent. It seems to me very much a male take on sexual relationships, and the take of a certain type of male at that, but it is so brilliantly articulate that no matter who you are you can buy into it, believe in it for a brief hour, and come away enriched by it as a result. I have seen every BB&B fringe show from Bastard Chronicles on, and out of all of them this one feels most uniquely their own. I have quite simply never seen anything like it, and that's about the highest praise you can give a fringe show.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Edward Champion
Reviewer Email: ed@edrants.com
Rating: 5 Stars
What can I say that hasn't already been said about Jason Craig's latest theatrical fermentation? Perhaps I can quibble over how Craig's goatee didn't quite match his vocal intonations, or note the exquisite use of hula hoops, overlapping dialogue and the fabulous multilayered symbol of eggs (and a bell!), or ponder for a moment how this Beat-inspired saunter into relationships made me consider, just for a small moment, what life might be like with a third nipple. Ideally, that's what theatre should do.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Timothy McCown Reynolds
Reviewer Email: captainmidnight@hotmail.com
Rating: 5 Stars
Right. So, I saw a review posted from someone (Ryan?) who, like me, saw this play before it left NYC, and I thought, "What the Hell? Why not?"
So: "The Young War" is the third BB&B show I have seen (I saw "Gulag Ha Ha" in the NY Fringe and "Sandwich" is one of the most perfectly realized pieces that I have seen in my life - and I saw it on video), and I am in a state of continous wonderment at the deft and varied artistry that so obviously permeates the work of these brilliant and dedicated performers. Mr. Craig always pleases as an actor - his is the kind of presence that instantly wins an audience's sympathy, even at his most fucked-up -and his text is the love-child of Beckett and Joyce, both simple and baroque, and verrrrrry funny in that dark and beautiful way that Tom Waits' music can make one feel that though the universe is sad and terrifying, epiphany is possible.
The cast is uniformly excellent: The aforementioned Mr. Craig, Ms. Jelliffe is stylishly arch, Ms. Peroni deadpan to make Buster Keaton green, Rod sleazy, connected, and strong, and the plastic cow-loving Sound Man (whose name eludes me-sorry) was the wild-card delight of the evening.
"The Young War" is to be seen by all. Go see it. NOW.


Play: young war
Reviewer: thessaly
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
BB&B is one of the most important American theater companies ever. for realsies. Every show they mount is interesting, risky, exciting and entertaining. We all know this and if the world was a right and just place, people like American Theater magazine and stuff, would know it too. I can't believe they are my friendsies!


Play: Young War
Reviewer: anonymous
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 3 Stars
I know I'm gonna be the bad guy on this one, but I just have to be honest. I didn't like this show. I thought it was one of those good ideas that turned out to be bad once executed. I just kept thinking that there was nothing going on between the characters, no risk. To me, good theatre involves relationships and conflict. The deadpan delivery was funny at times, but I think it took away from the show in general. Also, the use of props such as eggs & a hoola-hoop was just distracting and didn't seem to further the story. On the plus side, the actors were all interesting and committed to the script. I especially liked the "sound guy" who disrupted the show and sort of took over at the end. I can say that I have been pondering this show ever since I saw it, and you know, that's always a good thing.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Mia
Reviewer Email:

Jason Craig and Banana, Bag, and Bodice are sheer genius. Every aspect of this show is perfect, every word, every action, every thought behind it. The acting is uniformly perfect, taut, mesmerizing - an incredibly strong, intelligent, vulnerable cast. I was told that this is a show one could see over and over again. It's true. I saw myself, my life reflected in this play about the messy, brutal, inescapable world of relationships - both between and within the sexes. Heartbreaking and darkly funny.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Ronald Palmer
Reviewer Email: ronald.palmer@gmail.com
Rating: 4 Stars
Although BB&B borrow from the tradition named Theater Of The ABSURD, and give a specific nod to Beckett (e.g. Bananas, see: Krapp's Last Tape), it would be reductive to write that The Young War is an absurdist play. There are at least 4 layers of communication overlapping here--the lecture, the dance, the spontaneous duet (complete with ukelele?), duelling spoken word-- {not to mention a sort of "tag-team-seduction" of the fabulous and gorgeous women in this play!}, all of which coher to produce a stunning hour of coagulative entertainment. The Young War attacks one's artisitc neuron center at the theatrical spine. The momentum of this play is contagious and must make all writers (including this one)wish they had the guts to quit their day jobs and write the play of their dreams.
In combination with the previous characters, including the rapping "Bitch Cat" featured in their recent Sandwich, BB&B are a contempoary force that acheives a level of sardonic/sinisism/goofiness/outrage/erotic, (this list goes on for 700 pages) what movies, television and gender theory have failed to do: offer a post Y-2000 snap shot of the Straight White Male conundrum: how does one escape his one's own perpetually contentious, unsatisfied, mired and drowning in fantasy, finally left limp and impotent sans his medico-saviour VIAGRA, the "dude" of today is enraged without outlet; yet this all erases itself. You'll see. The subject matter mimicks the language, it stops, stutters, is truncated at perfect place and pitch. Even the metaphorically dissected egg, carefully separated into their clinically anticeptic translucent packages, the egg, ovum and yes the woman remains a sublime mystery.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Diana Galligan
Reviewer Email: diana@peppermillmedia.com
Rating: 5 Stars
Excellent! This show made me smile, cry, laugh and stare with awe. Beautifully executed, the performers are riveting, the timing impecable. I didn't know what to expect (my first time at the SF fringe) and I was completely blown away. Great work!
-- Diana from "Viva Vivi!"


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Kevin Rolston
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 4 Stars
Come spend a night in the fucked up mind world of Jason Craig! The Young War rages against the ridiculous world of dating relationships and when you get down to it, the amazing feat of the human race's survival (with its hopes pinned to the successes and failures of stupid sexy humans). I don't know about you. but I love laughing right up until the moment I'm terrified by my species. So bring the kids on down! and remind them that we're none of us anything more than the basest of animals who must fuck.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: noah
Reviewer Email: noah@ripetreats.com
Rating: 5 Stars
Profound, absurd, disturbing & lovely.
Thank god.
Without BB&B, life would be useless & boring.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Sophie
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
This play will find you laughing, cringing, emotionnally spent and yet wanting more all at the same time. I guess it's the mark of a great play. The brilliantly disturbing writing of Jason Craig is served by an excellent cast.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Dylan
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
This is Banana Bag& Bodice's best play yet, and it is completely different from everything they've done so far.
It's like watching a replay of your first date with a true love, your first sex with them, your first big fight with them, your marriage, divorce and murder-suicide, all at the same time.
Brilliant. Hilarious. Traumatic. Deliciously psychotic. See it with someone you love.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: NovySan
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
Those bastards did it to me again. Banana, Bag, and Bodice refuse to be contained in a singular style and once again, expand outward in a supernova explosion of style and ideas, proving there is no terrain or frontier they cannot master. Take metaphor, mix well. Serves 80. Well crafted and tightly performed, The Young War is possibly the most mature and exportable of all the BB&B productions to date. Jason Craig' ability to beautifully, playfully mangle language, and the workshop construction of the super talented ensemble, have created an absurdist play that is not readily recognizable as one, and may just slip under the radar for theatre goers not devoted to the genre. Until it's too late, and they walk away from the show questioning every relationship they've ever had, and wondering just how the hell we all get along long enough to reproduce. Far from being critical of love, The Young War delights in dysfunctionality and gleefully show us that it is the wild, unknown, and defective that attracts and sustains us. And that we really wouldn't have it any other way.


Play: The Young War
Reviewer: Michael Bean
Reviewer Email: hippolyte@gmail.com
Rating: 5 Stars
The Young War is a freaky, mildly offensive, funny, and remarkable play. Playwright Jason Craig describes romantic relationships like an alien anthropologist. The content of lived human romance is there but is distorted, making the dialog at once familiar and bizarre. The delivery by the five person cast is near-perfect and remarkably well-timed. Great show!


Play: Young War
Reviewer: Ryan Jensen
Reviewer Email: neverboing@hotmail.com
Rating: 5 Stars
I saw this play before it left NYC and I've found myself rolling the images and ideas it plays with around in my head for a week now. It captures the absurdity and madness of love and passion in an incredibly accessible, yet totally incomprehensible fashion. The cast is remarkable and serve the play before themselves. Smart, clean direction and a lack of self-pity drive this piece into my top ten lifetime theatre works. just go see it...have a drink...loosen up...don't expect anything and just listen hard. It's all there.