Washington Post
- Recommended
"...If it sounds like a bit much, well … it is? Malloy’s is a lively intellect, and he’s trying to paint a picture of something huge — the entirety of digital culture — in what’s essentially a one-act opera. This will not, to put it mildly, work for every audience. But at his best the writer is an idea juggler on a level with Tony Kushner and Tom Stoppard, determined to wrestle with what makes us human and what makes humans so awful so often."
MetroWeekly
- Somewhat Recommended
"...While the songs individually are dynamic, the cycle doesn’t build but just progresses from one to the next, to the next. As my theater companion observed, it feels “like Cats,” and not in a good way. Cats at least builds to a payoff for its procession of “Hi, I’m Bumblebritches, and here’s what I’ve been through to get here” numbers. Octet offers no such satisfaction, and, ultimately, too little drama to chew on, while it scrolls from story to story."
Talkin Broadway
- Highly Recommended
"...Director David Muse has worked with these actors–especially Crane, Aguilar, and Joyce–so they can manifest the characters' interior attitudes and make them visibly bring them to life on the stage. Ashleigh King, movement coordinator/choreographer, finds ways for the performers to blur the lines that may separate them from the audience, aided by Moyenda Kulemeka's character-revealing costumes and Mary Louise Geiger's shifting lighting design."
Washington Blade
- Highly Recommended
"...And helmed by David Muse, “Octet” is a precisely, quietly, yet powerfully staged production, featuring a topnotch cast who (when not taking their moment in the spotlight) use their voices to make sounds and act as a sort of Greek chorus. Mostly on stage throughout all of the 100-minute one act, they demonstrate impressive stamina and concentration."
Stage and Cinema
- Highly Recommended
"...Dave Malloy’s Octet is a bold and quietly unsettling chamber musical that explores the anxiety, isolation, and fragile intimacy of life online. From the Tony Award–winning composer of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, the work—which opened on Sunday at Studio Theatre—channels Malloy’s musical audacity into an entirely a cappella score that is both technically exacting and emotionally raw. Structured as a contemporary support-group meeting for people struggling with internet addiction, Octet unfolds less like a conventional musical and more like a collective act of listening."
MD Theatre Guide
- Highly Recommended
"...It’s physically impossible to put the genius of “Octet“ into words and an even more impossible task to undertake as a production. Somehow, Studio Theatre nails it. Though “Octet” may confuse the conventional theatre-goer, it is the most artistically stimulating experience in any medium of recent memory. In a world that is more dependent on technology by the second, “Octet” is a necessary prophecy delivered under the guise of innovative musical theatre."
Morris Theatre DC
- Highly Recommended
"...Octet is a revelatory achievement across the board: a can't-miss event of sophisticated musical artistry, brought to life with a stellar cast and intelligent direction."
The Georgetown Dish
- Highly Recommended
"...The show is an ‘acapella’ chamber musical with music, lyrics, book, and vocal arrangements, by Dave Malloy. It follows eight people, therefore the name Octet, struggling with digital dependency. Malloy’s score plumbs the many corners of the internet from pornography to games. Each of the characters has a yearning for the connection they find on it. The score is funny at times, serious at others. Each of the eight people in the basement tell you who they are, and why they are there. Of course, all in song."
BroadwayWorld
- Highly Recommended
"...This provocative and precociously talented (the artistic choice of utilizing a cappella singing, as it is contrasted with the often intense and emotional story of an internet addiction therapy group--- seems to call out for a loud, raucous, and cacophonous orchestra) Mr. Malloy, however, veers in an unconventional direction. This highlights the paradigm of his using an iconoclastic approach to every aspect of this utterly immersive and compelling musical (that almost plays like a chamber opera piece)."
A Theatre-Goer's Thoughts
- Highly Recommended
"...Octet is daring, creative, unique, timely, and on-topic, with a significant perspective on our times. Instead of staring at screens, consider spending some time with people in a shared experience, observing and listening to eight real-life human beings on a stage."
DC Theater Arts
- Somewhat Recommended
"...I suspect Malloy’s intention with Octet is to mirror the internet itself: overwhelming, contradictory, infinite. If so, Octet succeeds almost too well. The experience left me neither enlightened nor moved, but vaguely discomfited. I felt as though I had spent 100 minutes scrolling — absorbing information, reacting intellectually, but never feeling changed, inspired, or entertained. The show diagnoses our collective tech addiction with relentless precision, but offers no revelation, no transformation, no emotional release — only more data, more noise, more stimulation. In other words, it replicates the very condition it claims to interrogate."
