Ashley's Reviews > People, Places & Things

2.5 Stars. I really enjoyed reading the first act, but the second act felt so incredibly rushed the play lost a lot of its meaning to me. I struggled a lot with the believability of the protagonist’s Act Two epiphany (it felt a bit out of nowhere, so it didn’t linger with me as something veritable). The program itself also felt minimally fleshed out and unclear.

Yet, I did still appreciate a lot about the play. In Act One, I instantly became enamored by it all — the unique use of punctuation, the stage directions, the dialogue. It was all so frenetically paced, I felt immersed and in such a genuine manner too. The structure is genius — the embodiment of an unreliable narrator was exquisitely and powerfully written. Also, I loved the physical representations of transference that were sewn in as motifs throughout the plot as well (particularly, the Mother and Doctor being played by the same actor). The way in which the author employed the concept of people, places, and things as a modality for understanding addiction was also very innovative and impactful.

Still, overall, the story itself felt sparse and left me rather disconnected from the characters. Though the dialogue felt incredibly authentic to natural speech, many of the soliloquy’s and monologues felt cliche (though a few definitely resonated with me). Would love to see this performed because I definitely think it’s a play that would shine in that medium!