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Brief Encounter Critics' Reviews

"Using the tools of music hall, classic British pantomime and story-theater — plus a bit of trompe l’oeil technology, via film projections — this production lets its audiences see a familiar movie with virgin eyes and, yes, fall in love with it all over again."

Review by Ben Brantley from The New York Times

"Brief Encounter is a giddily spinning zoetrope of interlocking illusions, an uninhibited fetish of Inhibition itself. More to the point, it’s about the thrill of watching someone else’s moral torment safely embalmed in celluloid — and doing so in a darkened theater, alongside row upon row of anonymous fellow voyeurs."

Review by Scott Brown from New York Magazine

"This has to be one of the most inventive, genre-breaking shows since The Drowsy Chaperone. But all the smirk, all the exhilarating multimedia effects, cannot gussy up what is at its heart: a small, wistful play."

Review by Mark Kennedy from Associated Press

"Work as imaginative and wholly successful as Brief Encounter doesn't come along every day. Indeed, for me it was an exhilarating reminder of why I fell in love with the theater in the first place."

Review by Erik Haagensen from Backstage

"The brilliant production of Brief Encounter that opened on Broadway last night should make all but the sourest puss believe in romance again. It's a spirited charm offensive that's just impossible to resist."

Review by Elisabeth Vincentelli from The New York Post

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