Los Angeles Times
- Recommended
"...But although the uneven cast doesn't always measure up to the production's demands, Duncombe's new text, coupled with Michel's ever-rigorous staging, heightens LaBute's sophomorically sensational work into a serious examination of semantics, sin and the human imperative for connection, however imperfect."
LA Weekly
- Not Recommended
"...Sadly, though, the adaptation adds little luster to the sometimes irritatingly shrill characters, who are acted gamely if stiffly by the cast. LaBute often has been accused of depicting misogynist attitudes in an attempt to critique male behavior, but in this early work, the unpleasant toxicity of his language is so over-the-top and repetitive, it becomes numbing and tedious."
Backstage
- Recommended
"...Frédérique Michel's direction adds contrasting grace and beauty, paired with the glorious production design by Charles Duncombe-who provides "art talk" text in addition to LaBute's words."
StageHappenings.com
- Recommended
"...Subtitled "Scenes of Intolerance," this re-working of Neil LaBute's 1989 treatise on his normal themes of heterosexual men's fear-based dominance of perceived lesser beings, namely women and gay men, has been given an extraordinarily intelligent re-thought. Long mistaken as a anti-female misogynist, LaBute's understandable rage over the way men (and by extension male-dominated religion) hurt women (and themselves) by not acknowledging the valid differences between the genders, is dramatically muscular, funny, as well as spot-on."
Examiner
- Not Recommended
"...You don't have to be particularly thin-skinned to be offended-or at least annoyed-by the ongoing monologues, as each man takes a turn denigrating and deriding females as a whole. Not funny. Not witty. Not clever. And the same goes for the unambiguous monologues dealing with homosexuality, race, and other politically volatile topics."
ArtsBeatLA
- Somewhat Recommended
"...
I wanted to love Filthy Talk For Troubled Times but as a whole, it didn't quite gel."
LA Stage Times
- Recommended
"...Whatever their specific intentions with Filthy Talk (and the exhibition in an adjacent gallery that mixes Gerlad Slota's photos with snippets of prose by LaBute), it's clear that Michel and Duncombe have finally, fully inhabited their new space with this production."
Opening the Curtain
- Not Recommended
"...But it's that drinking, that dynamic, that not only brings down the men but ultimately the production. Director Michel is better known, and better suited, to the stylized movement and text of the women than the gritty naturalism of Filthy Talk for Troubled Times. She's focused on choreographing the men's drunken decline into a ballet of slurs and stumbles. Visually it provides a physical arc for the 75-minute show but theatrically it lacks the vulgar punch that Neil LaBute's work demands."
Culture Vulture
- Recommended
"...Is there a story' As a matter of fact, no. Does that matter' I am not sure. That is probably in the eye of the beholder. If you are easily offended or if it is important to you that there be a story arc …. better try something else. If what you are after is a short (75 minute) stunning and provocative production that leaves you asking questions as you leave, this is your ticket. I think you will be intrigued."
