Washington Post - Highly Recommended
"...Me, I love to be made uncomfortable in the theater - if the play is good, of course. And "Fairview" is very good. As the white commentary becomes ever more incendiary, with the unseen characters increasingly prone to unguarded remarks, the play becomes freer, and more dangerous. (Eventually, it will go crazy.) Yes, it does go on a bit, too, but not without reason. You're kept involved because you're kept off balance. You're never quite sure how far this playwright is willing to go."
DC Theater Arts - Highly Recommended
"...Woolly Mammoth's production of Fairview is not only an unforgettable evening of theater but it also literally challenges white-majority audiences to look at themselves as playgoers who have historically "owned" their seats. But as Keisha says, no group can or should own those seats forever. What would it look like if white people cede their tenancy? What would be the effect on black people? Those are questions that haunt the play, and, presumably, fuel the facilitated discussions on race that follow each performance."
MetroWeekly - Somewhat Recommended
"...This defining facet of the theater experience is at the heart of Jackie Sibblies Drury's Fairview, a clever but unsettling study of race relations. Using performance, she draws us - sometimes insidiously, sometimes jarringly - through four successive layers of theater, starting with what seems to represent an African-American sitcom and evolving into something much more visceral and almost surreal. Her goal - which is no secret - is to challenge a white audience to recognize and ultimately feel the African-American experience of being forever under scrutiny, forever judged by the good-intentioned, the ignorant, and the awful."
Talkin Broadway - Recommended
"...Director Stevie Walker-Webb understands the importance of pacing as the action begins fairly benignly. At first the play seems utterly conventional, with a few hiccups, as Beverley wears herself out preparing a 70th-birthday dinner for her mother, and Dayton offers his help without actually doing much. They're soon joined by Beverley's waspish sister Jasmine (Shannon Dorsey, making a meal out of her every word) and overachieving Keisha, home from school after basketball practice. One odd thing is that several characters examine themselves in an invisible mirror on the fourth wall, facing the audience."
MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended
"...In its 40th season, Woolly Mammoth lives up to its reputation for gripping, socially-engaged drama with its production of "Fairview." Jackie Sibblies Drury's knotty, brilliant show, making its Washington, D.C., debut, serves as a strong start to the company's season. A social thriller that explores the intersection of race and surveillance, Woolly stuns again with this nervy production."
DCTheatreScene - Highly Recommended
"...As Fairview takes a pleasant, family story about a middle class, African-American family and turns it and them on their heads, the audience is turned inside out, too. Bringing the mostly white audience into the play for the gripping coda is at least one of the points in this incendiary, revolutionary drama from one of the theatre's exciting new voices."
BroadwayWorld - Highly Recommended
"...If it hasn't been made clear yet, Fairview is nearly impossible to distill into a simple review. Even the act of reading this play wouldn't be able to capture the power contained on Woolly's stage. If audiences engage in the way that Drury's script hopes they do, however, the impact of this show has the potential to reach far beyond Woolly's redesigned lobby and into DC and beyond."