Skeleton Crew Reviews Round-up – Donmar Warehouse

"Instant classic of work, hope and dignity"

"Dominique Morisseau’s play set in a Detroit car factory features four outstanding performances"

"Some plays land like instant classics. Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew is one such. First staged in the US in 2016 and now receiving its UK premiere in a fabulous production by Matthew Xia, it is a funny, humane, deeply moving drama — not so much state-of-the-nation as state-of-the-world."

"Set in Detroit in 2008, as the fallout from the financial crash is hitting hard, Morisseau’s play (the third in her Detroit Project trilogy) never preaches politics and never budges from the staff breakroom of an automobile factory (painstakingly designed by Ultz). But into that room its four characters bring the wider world and all the personal anguish of struggling through a stark economic decline. Better still, this stagecraft never feels too obvious: these are warm, rounded, instantly believable individuals for whom you are soon mightily concerned."

"Ofori’s Shanita and Cook’s Dez are funny and sharp, but their hopes also make them touchingly vulnerable. Bamtefa’s Reggie is excellent — heartbreaking as the pressures on him finally bring him to tears. Nomvete is terrific as Faye, whose tough, no-nonsense exterior conceals a generous heart."

"America’s precariat show grit in the face of crisis"

"An infectious soundtrack and a bubbling script boost Dominique Morisseau’s drama as the spectre of closure looms over the lives of four assembly-line workers"

"When in 2015 Lynn Nottage’s seminal play, Sweat, dramatised the corrosive effects of de-industralisation on blue-collar lives in rust-belt America, it looked like the future of Trumpian politics foretold. There is a terrible circular synergy between that moment of event theatre and this one in the staging of Dominique Morisseau’s Tony award-winning drama. It features a quartet of stressed out assembly-line workers in a car factory in 2008, but feels resonant as Trump stands on the brink of re-election."

"Directed by Matthew Xia, it is dynamic staged with a highly infectious soundtrack (from Aretha Franklin to hip-hop artist, J Dilla, and his group, Slum Village), while the pound and hiss of machinery fills the space overhead in Ultz’s realist stage design. The production itself thrums with life, its tone buoyant, refusing to sink into defeatism."

"An edgy, joyful evocation of the working-class, African-American experience"

"This highly anticipated staging of Dominique Morisseau’s 2016 play emerges as a trenchant critique of the excesses of capitalism"

"This heartfelt, captivating staging of Dominique Morisseau’s 2016 play Skeleton Crew is the concluding part of her Detroit trilogy, inspired by the city of her birth. It is also both the play’s UK premiere and the final production of Michael Longhurst’s five-year tenure as Artistic Director at the Donmar."

"With its gritty, poignant subject matter, Skeleton Crew emerges as both a trenchant critique of the excesses of capitalism, and an articulation of the plight of blue-collar workers callously exploited by a management whose sole concern is greater productivity. It sees Morisseau skilfully evoke the fragility and struggle at the heart of the urban, working-class, African-American experience while also deftly, joyfully and often humorously celebrating her characters’ resilience and the black quotidian."

"Layers of emotion”"

"Compelling performances bring out all the heart and harshness embedded in Dominique Morisseau’s gripping workplace drama"

"Set in the post-industrial, post financial-crash urban wasteland of 2008 Detroit, Dominique Morisseau’s powerful and humane drama follows four skilled Black workers clinging to their dreams and dignity at a failing car factory."

"First staged in 2016, the play is part of a triptych – the Detroit Project – exploring Black lives and the city’s turbulent history. Morisseau has a superb ear for dialogue, capturing a lively working-class vernacular, all spiky banter, unspoken worry and pointed comments about the alienation of workers and the decline of a shared sense of community."

"Director Matthew Xia lets each scene develop in its own time, with natural lulls and flurries making each conversation feel entirely real. While the pace is languid, the piece generates some crackling energy towards the end, with compelling layers of emotion, hurt and empathy gradually exposed as we spend time with these stressed, troubled, but deeply sympathetic characters."

"From these characters, and the threat of imminent closure – the retention of only a skeleton crew to keep the plant going – Morisseau conjures a rich portrait of the way that people’s dreams of the better life are dashed against harsh economic reality. Although the narrative tips towards the sentimental in the play’s second part, her writing has a poise and a precision that allows the dialogue to reveal her larger themes."

"This emphasis on the meaning and dignity of work gives the play considerable force. Sometimes it tilts into the obvious, but its meaning lands true. When Shanita talks about the way traffic no longer merges, and everyone is out for themselves, it’s a salutary reminder of how the failings of industry and the lack of concern for anything but a profit margin, corrode and distort values in society at large. It feels like a drama for our times."

"3.5 STARS - A beautifully observed, vivid slice of American life"

"This show set in a Detroit car factory is a thoroughly enjoyable night out"

"Four black employees struggle to get by at a Detroit car factory as the auto industry and the city it supports collapse around them in Dominique Morriseau’s easygoing play. It’s a beautifully-observed, well-made comedy drama about hardscrabble existence, and Matthew Xia directs a fine cast with laid-back assurance. If you come to it cold you’ll have a splendid time. If you’ve seen either Sweat or Clyde’s, both by Lynn Nottage and both mounted at the Donmar, you might get a sense of déjà vu and of slight disappointment, as they explored similar territory – albeit in a Pennsylvania setting – in more depth."

"The slow-burn romance between Dez and imperious Shanita is elegantly performed, with Ofori bearing her neat baby bump like a galleon under sail. It’s a pleasure to watch Tobi Bamtefa’s subtle exploration of Reggie’s suppressed frustration, rage and sadness."

"The play arguably comes to a too-neat conclusion. But this is a vivid slice of American life addressing a situation in which millions find themselves worldwide, and a thoroughly entertaining night out."

"This American workplace drama is impressive if overlong"

"There are striking scenes of impotent rage at the Donmar in Dominique Morisseau’s play about a declining Detroit car factory"

"If you want to see what impotent rage looks like, hang around for an outstanding scene near the end of Dominique Morisseau’s play about four workers in a declining Detroit car factory."

"So I’m glad I’ve seen Skeleton Crew, the last show commissioned by the Donmar’s outgoing artistic director Michael Longhurst, realised with unshowy finesse by the director Matthew Xia."

"It’s a show that sets out to simmer more than come to the boil. So, despite placing characters in compromised positions, it is only loosely packed with incident. Without a few more flashpoint moments and a punchier ending, it’s an impressive evening, but at two hours plus a sluggish one too."

"Thoughtful American play about four people caught up in the country’s industrial decline"

"In Dominique Morriseau’s 2016 drama, the US playwright explores both the dignity of labour and the trap of labour by showing how utterly dependent on her four working class Black characters are on their jobs."

"What Morriseau does extremely well is bring together four well-rounded characters - each of whom appears to have a full life off stage, only glancingly alluded to here - and show their lives through the prism of work."

"The tough but troubled turn from Nomvete as Faye is the best performance and the key to the story"

"It’s good, but to be an unbearable theatre wonk I wonder if it was best programmed so soon after last year’s Donmar production of Lynn Nottage’s phenomenal ‘Clyde’s’, which explores many of the same themes"