AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

Updated October 22, 2008 - 8:39AM

New York Times

Somewhat More Than Boys, a Little Less Than Men
This spotty but enjoyable revival evokes the mood of aching, hopeful despair that Howard Korder’s 1988 comedy memorializes effectively.

First Night Reviews

New York Daily News

'Boys' Life' is too slight a comedy
Joe Dziemianowicz: Jason Biggs has gone from playing the guy who dated a dessert in "American Pie" to one who woos an unconscious woman in "Boys' Life." Is that progress, people?

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Theater Review of Boys' Life

Newsday

Review: Jason Biggs in Howard Korder's 'Boys' Life'

New York Post

It has boyish charm
Like the overgrown male children at its core, Howard Korder's 1988 "Boys' Life" has an immaturity it can't quite overcome. A pungently witty and insightful portrait of arrested development, the comedy/drama revived last night lacks the depth to make it truly interesting. "You know, you'd never have this kind of a...

Star-Ledger

Buddies work hard at playing in 'Boys' Life'

Bergen Record

Boys will be boys … ad nauseam

Associated Press

'Boys' Life' examines why men do what they do

Bloomberg.com

Jason Biggs Brings Star Power to `Boys' Life'; Witty Ayckbourn: John Simon
``American Pie'' star Jason Biggs was 10 years old when Howard Korder's ``Boys' Life'' was first produced by Lincoln Center Theater in 1988. The play, with Biggs now starring as one of three clueless college buddies who find different ways not to grow up in the big city, returns spiritedly for a strong second chance at Second Stage near Times Square.

Variety

Review: Boys' Life
How sad to think the ugly, cynical, aggressive 1980s in retrospect can seem almost innocent. How else to explain the fact that, back in 1988, audiences could be needled by "Boys' Life," Howard Korder's now-trite dissection of the misanthropic male animal?

Back Stage

Boys' Life reviewed by David Sheward
Before Neil LaBute held sway as the chief dramatic chronicler of the nasty man-boy, Americanus variety, Howard Korder staked his claim to that distinction.

TheaterMania

Review: Boys' Life
A cast of energetic actors can't disguise the deficiencies in Howard Korder's 1988 play about three former college roommates who can't grow up.

nytheatre.com

Review: Boys' Life
Though the word "metrosexual" didn't yet exist when Howard Korder's Boys' Life premiered Off-Broadway in 1988, the concept certainly did. The Oprah Winfrey Show was already on the air, and men's feelings - as well as women's feelings about men's feelings - were already under close scrutiny. The barely coherent brute of the past, interested only in beer, football, and sex, was on the way out, and the moist-eyed family man on the way in. Korder's play, about three college friends trying to apply their ancient mindset to a new world, was ideal for showing us what was being lost - and what some would be glad to be rid of. . . .

CurtainUp

Review: Boys' Life
Having cast members as well as stagehands move props and scurry around the stage between scenes is both annoying and a pungent visual symbol of the titular boys moving in circles rather than forward into adulthood