Very interesting like everything else I've seen at SF Playhouse. It's a great place to see live theater. The dialog in the play was a bit slow...which I'm sure was exactly the intent of the writer. The story had surprise, emotion, and sympathy for the characters. And the set was perfect...amazing attention to detail. Good job SF Playhouse.

The Aliens manages to be profound and simple at the same time. As an audience member, I felt included - touched by each character, and still thinking about them this morning. It's been a while since I've gone to a play. The Aliens reminded me how powerful and important it is to experience live theatre. Thank you.

I am glad I got to see this before it closes and recommend you do the same. Annie Baker is great playwright. I previously saw her Body Awareness. The actors in this production were good and I was drawn into their characters' world as the play unfolded. I reflected on it as I took the Muni home and there was a touching interchange between the driver and a passenger that could have been part of the script. Sweet!

Powerful and totally relatable.
Terrific acting.
Highly recommended!
Sharon Collins
San Francisco

Although characterization was strong, we didn't care about the characters nor was there much in terms of a storyline.

I appreciated what they were trying to accomplish but it was difficult to follow at times as the play depended on long periods of silence. However, it was beautifully acted.

It's amazing. After reading the play, I was very much looking forward to the "ladder" section- it's amazing.

I attend a lot of theater and this is easily the worst play I've even seen. There is no narrative, no story, no interesting dialogue, no interesting characters and no ending. The silent moments become an eternity with no apparent purpose for the silence. But the worst of all scenes is where the main character repeats "ladder (or "bladder") about 150 times in a row. I was ready to scream as it was beyond irritating. I wanted to walk out but my wife thought it would be rude. Well, Ms.Baker, writing a scene like that is rude and has no purpose. Buy the biggeest offender is the management of the SF Playhouse for putting this play on in the first place and taking money for this piece of garbage.

“The Aliens” isn’t as effortlessly crowd-pleasing and funny as Annie Baker's “Body Awareness,” which was recently produced at the Aurora in Berkeley; in fact, at times, Baker seems to be testing the audience’s limits in this tale of two aimless and troubled 30-something men who hang out behind a small-town Vermont coffee shop, and the naive teenage employee of the shop who befriends them. There are lengthy periods of silence, when nothing much seems to happen, and then there’s the scene in which one of the characters says the word “ladder” approximately eleventy billion times in a row. It makes sense in context, but I haven’t felt such a palpable sense of audience discomfort since Will Eno’s “Thom Pain,” which also uses silence to provoke a reaction in its viewers.

I will admit that for the first 15 minutes or so, “The Aliens” annoyed me. But then I found myself drawn into the characters’ world, and Baker’s essential humanity and affection for this trio had me hooked. By the end, I felt profoundly moved, and eager to see more of her work (her third major play, “Circle Mirror Transformation,” will reportedly be getting a Bay Area run this fall). However, “The Aliens” is not for everyone. The couple sitting to my right had a long debate at intermission about whether or not to stay for the second act, and while they wound up sticking around (after some ostentatious sighing on the part of the male half), they both took out their smartphones and checked them during the play. Boo!

I thought the acting was good and enjoyed the interaction between characters. I like it even more after seeing it so would definitely recommend this play

Whoah. What happened? Apparently nothing. I keep thinking I'm just dumb or something, but really missed the entire point of this play. Superb acting. Painful pauses. Frustrating repetition. Occasionally brilliant that didn't seem to add up to anything.

Well to start out, the actors did a fabulous job of portraying the characters set out for them, its just that the characters were so poorly written that it was impossible to be entertained. Overrall BAD.

As a woman, I had a hard time slowing down to "Guy speak." The play and dialog was very slow and being a type A personality, I had a hard time relating to the 2 slackers. I loved the young Jewish guy's character and in general the acting was great for all three of them. I loved the set and staging. The music in between scenes was also fitting.

My husband really liked the play and said you rarely get to see guys relate like that on stage and he was engaged in that. You could tell that under all the guy attitude, they all cared deeply for one another. We every got to have a good conversation about it afterwards.

This play was different and memorable and will likely grow on me as time passes. It does make me question all of my busy-body-ness and made me realize how annoying it must be for men to listen to women chatter on. Thanks for that Annie Baker.

One of the worst plays I had ever attended, perhaps the worst. What a waste of time and money. It appeared to the people in my party that the play writer made a fool of many of us. Where is common sense and good judgement? The question is for the people at the SF Playhouse. I may not attend any more plays there.

This play worked very well in this venue. The reason is that you need to be up close and personal with the characters since this is a very slow paced production. You need to able to see their expressions to be totally involved with the plot.

Loved a previous play of Annie Baker's, so couldn't wait to see this one. This play is slooow, the characters not likeable, the dialogue uninteresting. Also, they smoke (clove) cigarettes a lot, which, in this tiny theater, means you can't help but breathe and smell the smoke. We were so happy when intermission came, and we could leave.

Really great play. So well acted.

Yikes! I love this venue and was optimistic, however the play really was terrible. All the reviewers except the first one, who is probably part of SF Playhouse, hit the nail on the head. Weak character development, no connection between the kid and the writer to explain why the kid gets upset. Very weak writing. We're not looking for bestseller material just something to keep me awake for two hours. Reminds me of some piece of crap I tried to foist on my class when I was in film school. My teacher saw through my charade and compelled me to write and film another. The writer should go sit in the corner and think about what she did.

Unfortunately I didn't read the interview with Annie Baker before I went to see her play.

In that interview she said:
"THE ALIENS is only 71 pages long, but I’m hoping it’ll be like a two-hour play after we put the pauses in".

And so she did. It's a very slow, boring two-hour play with not much dialogue and no stage set changes. Also, since this theater is very small, the smoke of the herbal cigarettes they used quite a lot in this play was annoying. All in all I expected something better.

Link for the interview: http://aszym.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-interview-playwrights-part-38-annie.html

I was looking forward to this as I saw Annie Baker's Body Awareness which was very well written and enjoyable. This was completely different. VERY slow, VERY boring. If you enjoy observing people vs. listening to them then perhaps you will enjoy this. The acting is decent but the play seems to have no point, no build up, just painful to watch. I should have left at intermission but I was hoping the second act would get better. It didn't. The people who were laughing mainly seemed to be the people who work at SF Playhouse. Other people laughing must have related to the two characters "recreational habits".

I agree with another reviewer that there was not enough to make me care about these characters. I did not feel that the young guy and the one character even had that great of a connection for the young one to be upset in the end. (Also, I hope I never hear the word "ladder" again. You'll get this IF you see the show.)

SF Playhouse should have picked Body Awareness to put on instead. It was just done recently in Berkeley but I think it still would have done well in SF.

On a positive note, excellent set as always.

I am so happy to have this opportunity to rate this play. To begin with, the writer didn't have to spend much time writing, since the silences, which were an integral part of it, were excruciatingly long. Very little happened up to intermission. However, it seemed to be extremely well cast in that the characters were absolutely believable.
At intermission, I found someone who was involved with the show because I wanted to make a little, friendly comment. (This was supposedly a preview.) As it turns out, the person I found was the writer. As an older person, I mentioned to her (a younger person) that as far as I knew, there was no such thing as a "Drive-through" movie--that they were "Drive-ins." (She had mentioned "Drive-through" movies in the play). Sometimes younger people mix things up, and I was just giving her a little piece of info that she might not have known. She said, "I am not interested in your opinion."
Having lost respect for both myself (for having "interfered") and for her, for being so mind-bogglingly rude and for forgetting that previews are still supposedly works in progress, I left. I hope there was more action for the poor bored audience during the second act.

There was not enough dialogue and the play was not as engaging. Acting was very good and I liked the message.

This play is very slow and directionless, which is the point of the play. However, I could have gotten the same effect from watching paint dry. Because the characters were so unlikable, they did not make me care about their outcome. It is a waste of time and money which are better spent elsewhere.

Don't ask questions-- just go see this. Brilliant.

It was booooorrrrrring. We left at intermission.