Winners and Losers

Tour de force . . . As the crowd was leaving the theatre after the performance of Winners and Losers, one man kept repeating ‘Formidable!’ to his companion. This captures to perfection the hour and a half of verbal fireworks we had just witnessed . . . The men’s virtuoso wordplay is a delight . . . at its heart it examines the issues of competition and, by extension, capitalism, the engines that drive modern Western civilization. The structure is centred on two friends having a lively debate while drinking a bottle of beer. But, this being Long and Youssef, some words are said that cut to the quick, and the audience is sent reeling . . . Winners and Losers is heady stuff. Formidable, indeed.

Globe and Mail

The chatty, semi-improvised piece . . . cross-fades into something more wounding, as Long and Youssef stack up their achievements, parenting skills, bank statements, and class privilege, in a sly theatrical microcosm of how people (particularly men reaching middle age) compete.

The New Yorker

Insidiously working its way into their casual interplay is the kind of jostling for one-upmanship, for alpha male status, that spritzes the theater with the scent of testosterone . . . we sense roiling currents of envy beneath the friendly banter . . . the financial disparity between them is real, and money very much matters in the real, offstage world.

New York Times

Winners and Losers is a winner once it starts to think big. … An ethical high ground is at stake. … the personal becomes intensely political. … victimhood rears its ugly head and the finally resonant competition has you leaning in by its pitch-perfect, heavy ending. … What gets in your head are the spot-on depictions, large and small, of people abusing candor and bending the rules in an inescapable race to come out on top.

Washington Post