Rating: 
Summary: Witty and Touching Play
Review: Greenberg has written a witty and touching play about homophobia and racism in baseball. The characters are real and the dialogue is crisp. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Best thing since Sorkin.
Review: I have seen this play three times already, once in previews and twice in the same week last June, and plan to go back the next time I am in NYC because several cast members have changed since the summer. I confess that I have not read the script yet, but as the genius of the play is more in the writing than in the acting (although that was wonderful, too), I believe the script can be reviewed by watching it. I plan to buy it soon.I believe that Take Me Out is the best show currently on Broadway. To people who are overly focused on musicals and do not consider it, I say that the monologues are the equivalent of any big ballad they could hope to see. The dialogue is the equivalent of Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, or, for television, Sports Night and The West Wing). It is intelligent, witty, and capable of turning progressively darker while never feeling out of touch with the humorous lines. It is not a baseball show. To continue the Aaron Sorkin comparison, a love of sports is no more of a necessity to enjoy Take Me Out than to enjoy Sports Night. No matter how much I love Marzac's monologues on the wonders of the game, I would no more actually watch it played after seeing the show than before. That does not prevent enjoying the description. It also should not be dismissed as being "just" a gay show. Yes, bigotry is a major issue of the play, both in terms of homophobia and racism. It is also a show about friendships, and varying degrees of strength and of honesty in them. Of course, there is the question raised by a few plot twists near the end, which I will not spoil, but regarding Kippy's theory that everything is for the best if people can put their true thoughts into words. In most situations, honesty may make the strongest friendships, but the truth can be ugly, or bring about ugly reactions from hatred. It is a play about how few simple answers there are, and that not every question is answered at the end is appropriate.
Rating:
Summary: Well-wrtten play will delight you
Review: I've seen this play twice, and I am amazed by the depth of character and attention to detail in the written form. Greenberg has obviously paid attention to the sport press, and the various players in the game of baseball. There are redneck baseball players who make horrific remarks, and there are also meek Japanese players. I dislike baseball, and I rarely watch baseball and the ensuing media, but even I know that the characters in Greenberg's play have real-life counterparts. The play is crisply written, and deals honestly with many issues. The characters are not one dimensional, but multi-dimensional. The redneck character (Shane) is a lot more complicated than the previous character would you have believe. His motives for his actions are never as obvious as the previous reviewer would have you believe. The character of Mason falls in love with the game of baseball, and it's a joy to read even if you dislike baseball like I do.
Rating:
Summary: GET THIS PLAY!!!
Review: Richard Greenberg has what it takes to be a great playwright. Take Me Out is one of his finest works he has written in his life. I didn't see the play, but i have read it and i thought it was a tastful work. It was funny, shocking, revealing, and at some points gone over the limits. There were parts where there's a lot of nudity involved and a lot of profanity used, but that didn't stop this play from getting good reviews. It's also an example of what makes theater strong and entertaining.
So, are you a big fan of Baseball? [...] then i recommend Take Me Out to you and you friends. What are you waiting for? GET THIS PLAY!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Incomprehensible and uninformed
Review: Richard Greenberg is author of competent and engaging plays like THREE DAYS OF RAIN and AMERICAN PLAN; here he stumbles badly. The New York Times pan of this show somehow did not translate into its failure at the box office, mainly because Greenberg has seen fit to gratuitously disrobe beautiful men for large chunks of the play's interminable running time. The flaws of this play are too numerous to really address in depth. Suffice to say, Greenberg's gay Upper West Side sensibility doesn't translate to this milieu; his exploration of masculinity and cultural bias lacks all subtlety and verges on the crass: the portrayal of a racist Southerner and a meek Asian are just the most insidious examples. The center of the play -- a gay man discovering his love of baseball -- is full of screaming-queen cliche, done to perfection by Denis O'Hare on Broadway but alarmingly vacant and stereotypical on the page. Greenberg can't capture these voices, or an American voice, as he piles unconvincing plot turn upon incomprehensible plot twist as the play wears on. If you think smug rhetorical ejaculations such as, "Baseball is better than democracy -- it's more honest" are either intelligent or entertaining, then this cringe-inducing embarrassment of a play is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Play works because of characters
Review: The characters in Take Me Out are strong, funny, and true to life. They come alive there on the page. I have not seen the play but I want to based on reading the play. You won't be disappointed if you read it.
Rating:
Summary: Play touches on many subjects with intelligence and wit
Review: The play tackles homophobia, racism, classism, and racism in an intelligent and witty way. The play has dimensional characters and the situations are true to life and involving.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful and witty
Review: This is a wonderfully written script. Greenberg takes the question of the gay culture into a new realm, by not including it so much. The sexual innuendos, the shower scenes, the fact that this is in a locker room? These all help create the mood that this is a setting of a typical male sports player. With issues that have surrounded homosexuals in athletes having been brought up, this play clearly identifies many pertinent questions. Yet, like any good play (as long as we're not going by Aristotelean methods), the themes, tropes, and plots all weave together nicely to create a complete package. And don't think because there are nude scenes that this is what the play is about. The nudity is more an aspect of realism, and one that Greenberg is conscious of, as the first scene has rather impertinent information, so that by the time it is introduced en masse, the audience may have gotten used to it. The characters are all well written, however, and one can easily identify and empathize with every single one, to an extent. Greenberg makes sure not to alienate any one person in particular, but makes it obvious that everyone has their issues, and that to coexist, we need to deal with them, or the consequences may not be so wonderful. And besides, out of the many baseball monologues that have been given, comparing it to other works, how many talk about the strut in such a beautiful manner... or address it at all?
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful and witty
Review: This is a wonderfully written script. Greenberg takes the question of the gay culture into a new realm, by not including it so much. The sexual innuendos, the shower scenes, the fact that this is in a locker room? These all help create the mood that this is a setting of a typical male sports player. With issues that have surrounded homosexuals in athletes having been brought up, this play clearly identifies many pertinent questions. Yet, like any good play (as long as we're not going by Aristotelean methods), the themes, tropes, and plots all weave together nicely to create a complete package. And don't think because there are nude scenes that this is what the play is about. The nudity is more an aspect of realism, and one that Greenberg is conscious of, as the first scene has rather impertinent information, so that by the time it is introduced en masse, the audience may have gotten used to it. The characters are all well written, however, and one can easily identify and empathize with every single one, to an extent. Greenberg makes sure not to alienate any one person in particular, but makes it obvious that everyone has their issues, and that to coexist, we need to deal with them, or the consequences may not be so wonderful. And besides, out of the many baseball monologues that have been given, comparing it to other works, how many talk about the strut in such a beautiful manner... or address it at all?
Rating: 
Summary: Far from his best work but still well written and fun
Review: This is far from Greenberg's best work but it's a well written entertaining play. Due to the extensive nudity in the play, this is his most commercial hit.
| 
