'Coruscating comedy of unresolved history... this decade's most eloquent theatrical statement on race in America today'
-- Ben Brantley * New York Times *
'A giddy mix of the angry and the absurd... Jacobs-Jenkins is considering important issues about race and representation and making something playful and provocative from them... inspired, invigorating'
* The Times *
'Bizarrely brilliant... a work that is both infinitely playful and deeply serious and which dazzlingly questions the nature of theatrical illusion'
* Guardian *
'Half of the fun - and there is a hell of a lot of fun - in watching An Octoroon is witnessing people squirm with discomfort, unsure if to laugh, when to laugh or if they are even allowed to laugh... Jacobs-Jenkins is like one of those magicians who shows you how the trick works and still leaves you agog with wonder'
* The Upcoming *
'A dazzlingly playful and sharply provocative look at ideas of race, representation and the nature of theatre itself'
* Evening Standard *
'A dazzling deconstruction of racial representation... deeply shocking, but darkly hilarious; satire at its most scornful... with a savage and sophisticated sense of irony, Jacobs-Jenkins sinks his teeth into the relationship between representations and reality'
* WhatsOnStage *
'A major work of new American drama... borrowing [from original play The Octoroon] is a stroke of inspiration in itself - melodrama being a self-referential genre, the satiric contexts of then and now contrast very nicely - but it's the richness of Jacobs-Jenkins's own imagination that really sets this show soaring... make no mistake about it, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a playwright to watch'
* The Arts Desk *
'How do you deal with slavery as a black American playwright? Take someone else's play, and play with it. Problematise it. Take the piss out of it. Take the piss out of the idea, too, of a 'black playwright' being constantly expected to confront race issues. But don't forget to still punch the audience in the guts. That's what Branden Jacobs-Jenkins does in An Octoroon... the play keeps you on your toes. It's bold, fearless playwrighting: laughing in the face of racism as well as allowing the horror of history to spell itself out'
* Time Out *
'Totally, totally bonkers... Jacob-Jenkins' text has a madcap mania and a rich vein of absurdist humour... An Octoroon is a play that refuses to kowtow to the audience's preconceptions, that dances with stereotypes and teases relentlessly with sly race politics'
* The Stage *
'A fresh and thought-provoking examination of the uniquely American experience of race and colour... forces the audience to confront uncomfortable issues and yet remains funny and incredibly engaging'
* Broadway World *
'So energetic, funny, and entertainingly demented, you can't look away'
* New York Post *
'The play uses the plot of the Irish playwright Dion Boucicault's 1859 melodrama The Octoroon... as the starting point for a bigger, wilder, more hilarious play about the tremendous, often tragic difficulties of identity, and life, for us all'
* New Yorker *
'A wildly imaginative new work'
* Village Voice *
