Review of The Other Place at The Shed, Off-Broadway

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I used to live in New York City when I went to college, as I attended the Fashion Institute of Technology for my undergraduate degrees, but when I left the city because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never really returned, I knew that I was regretting my time in college not taking advantage of student deals for Broadway and Off-Broadway productions.

Granted, I had never been exposed to that kind of environment, or theatre at all, so when I started working in New York theatre and spent some time in that world, I jumped back into it. This blog has been a way to document my journey as a theatre lover and watcher, especially considering I don’t like to do short-form video. Written criticism has always been my thing more.

I was headed back up to New York for a weekend of theater, and one of the shows that caught my eye was The Other Place. I think I was specifically drawn into it because of the art, then the premise is what really convinced me to see the show in the end. I bought a ticket through TodayTix, but ended up using my ticket protection to switch the ticket over to a later showing of Jesa at the Public Theater in March.

I did this because I saw that The Shed has $30 tickets (with fees) for people under a certain age, and I qualified! So I purchased a ticket for a Saturday matinee in the back row, but when we arrived and everyone was seated, the ushers told everyone who was sitting in the back to pick an open seat and go for it. A solid chunk of the show was unsold the day I was there, unfortunately, but I happily moved up five rows.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much.

After the death of a man, his family is left to pick up the pieces—especially his two surviving children.

This play opens up with the anniversary of the death of Issy and Annie’s father. He died previous to the events of the play, but the family has come together to finally spread his ashes—or at least they think that’s what they’re going to do.

Issy is present from the beginning of the play all the way up until the end, when she storms out over something major that’s happened throughout the course of the play. She is one of the few grounding forces, but in the moment she’s with her uncle, his family, and Terry, who’s known the family for years.

We can see Issy texting Annie throughout the beginning of the play up until Annie’s arrival. We can get the sense that something has happened with Annie in the past, which is why she’s not there in the present moment, but when Annie shows up that’s when the tightly controlled peace that permeates throughout the beginning quickly unravels.

A disagreement over what to do with the ashes specifically, which is led by Annie’s efforts onto what she thinks should happen to their father, is what sparks and drives the conflict in this play. There are some underlying themes as well, such as why her uncle is treating her as harshly as he does—which is something noted by the other characters.

But it goes deeper beyond the ashes. Spoilers ahead if you’re not wanting to read about the details and finer points of the play, or if you haven’t seen it already and are unfamiliar with the material.

As we see when Annie and her uncle start fighting over the ashes, there’s something underneath the surface. We see later in the play that Annie and her uncle had some sort of romantic relationship, which I guessed when Issy and all referenced that they used to go in the tent together and “think.” There’s also a potential implication to me that Annie’s father also did something to the girls, specifically Annie, but I wasn’t too sure.

We see Terry come onto Issy at one point in the play too, which adds to the callous nature these men have with the women in their lives. The only one to show genuine concern is Leni, but he’s considered young and not directly involved with the chaos of the immediate family.

Regardless, this is a play that deals heavily with sexual assault and suicide. The father killed himself by suicide and Annie was the one to find him, and, as Terry referenced, she’s “just like her father.”

Overall Thoughts

I have very complicated feelings about this play overall. I find the material it covers to be fascinating and I wanted to know more about the world these characters were inhabiting and why they got to the point where they’re at today. That also became its downfall to me—I wanted to know more about them, which is how this play ended up feeling too short.

The eighty minute run time went so quickly for me. The actors all did a fantastic job in their roles—no one was a particular stand out to me, but it felt like they were moving in a cohesive unit throughout the play. I believe everyone was from the original production, which is also pretty cool.

The set also worked really well—it’s the interior of the house, and we can see the outside yard through the glass windows. That’s where Annie sets up her tent in her final stand against her uncle and what she perceives to be as the right thing to do.

I say see this one if you can handle it; there's a lot of compelling material in it, although I felt like the play needed more in general to make it stand out with its themes.

Follow me below on Instagram, Goodreads, and Letterboxd for more.