LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD Reviews- Page 2

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/12/25 at 12:36pm

Huss417 said: "MemorableUserName said: "Adding here since the show isn't in previews. (The fact that no one's had anything to say about it in a month and a half likely indicates why it's closing.)

LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD Will Close Early on Broadway

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/LITTLE-BEAR-RIDGE-ROAD-Will-Close-Early-on-Broadway-20251212"

Being discussed in the previews thread if interested.

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/thread/LITTLE-BEAR-RIDGE-ROAD-Previews"

Which is why I said "Adding here since the show isn't in previews."

And considering how typically nasty that discussion got almost from the start a different, and accurate, thread may be welcome for some. To each their own.

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 12/12/25 at 1:49pm

Helen Shaw's New Yorker review was never posted. She is/was right as usual.

Laurie Metcalf’s Stunning Return to Broadway in “Little Bear Ridge Road”

The playwright Samuel D. Hunter tailors a family drama to the actress’s specific gifts

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/10/little-bear-ridge-road-theatre-review-the-bride-and-the-goodnight-cinderella

 

"The play operates best as a fine-grained character study, but its thinnest element is Ethan’s relationship with James, an oddly two-dimensional figure whose devotion becomes bizarre in the face of Ethan’s petulance and insults. I wondered if James’s saintliness represents another aspect of our lost COVID years, when intense relationships blossomed out of nothing. Hunter is interested in what flawed people can offer one another, the difference between saving and helping. "

[Auggie27]

Posted: 12/13/25 at 10:48am

The eloquent Shaw review - highlighting the distinct Americana in Hunter's story - is, in the best sense, triggering. The play is closing in no small part because it's a non-event offering in an "event" forward ecosystem. Ticket pricing as a liability remains a controversial topic, because we're told that even short runs require a preponderance of near premium seats to ensure return on the dollar. But here's where we hit a sociological wall: A show like Hunter's - about the struggling class of a red state, surviving COVID by the skin of their teeth, facing a bleak post-pandemic society wherein needed connections between isolated people are strained, tenuous - is a populist tale.

It's a small canvas illustration of small(er) lives - not dramatizing Oedipus or Norma Desmond - perfectly scaled. The very people who would see themselves and their communities in the play's world-building are shut out from the outset. The next argument goes like this, "Yeah, but after Broadway comes publication, and community theaters can do it everywhere." So this turns the premiere in New York into the Cannes Film Festival for new plays, creating a kind of trickle-down art form wherein the people who might most appreciate depicted lives and experiences won't have access to them until it's no longer in the hands of top tier professionals.

Updated On: 12/13/25 at 10:48 AM

[SteveSanders]

Posted: 12/13/25 at 11:43am

Easy to imagine this getting a fair number of regional productions in the years ahead.  Glad I caught it in Chicago while there on business as my NYC tickets were for January.

[TheOtherOne2]

Posted: 12/13/25 at 11:55am

Auggie27 said: "The eloquent Shaw review - highlighting the distinctAmericana in Hunter's story - is, in the best sense, triggering. The play is closing in no small part because it's a non-event offering in an "event" forwardecosystem. Ticket pricing as a liability remains a controversial topic, because we're told that even short runs require a preponderance of near premium seats to ensure return on the dollar. But here's where we hit a sociological wall: A show like Hunter's - about the struggling class of a red state, surviving COVID by the skin of their teeth, facing a bleak post-pandemic society wherein needed connections between isolated people are strained, tenuous - is a populist tale.

It's a small canvas illustration of small(er) lives - not dramatizing Oedipus or Norma Desmond - perfectly scaled. The very people who would see themselves and their communities in the play's world-building are shut out from the outset. The next argument goes like this, "Yeah, but after Broadway comes publication, and community theaters can do it everywhere." So this turns the premiere in New York into the Cannes Film Festival for new plays, creating a kind of trickle-down art form wherein the people who might most appreciate depicted lives and experiences won't have access to them until it's no longer in the hands of top tier professionals."

You should watch "Sullivan's Travels."

 

[MysteriousLady]

Posted: 12/13/25 at 6:13pm

No shade to Shaw but Auggie27 should have gotten the job. 

[BJR]

Posted: 12/13/25 at 7:22pm

SteveSanders said: "Easy to imagine this getting a fair number of regional productions in the years ahead. Glad I caught it in Chicago while there on business as my NYC tickets were for January."

Oh absolutely.