Reviews of the 33 Variations world premiere...

"Many of the men and women attending the world premiere of 33 Variations were in tears. Moises Kaufman's wise, lyrical meditation on a musical mystery is a celebration of the mediocre, of the so-so, of the middling and second-rate - in other words, of us." (more)
- Baltimore Sun

"When is an obsession a good thing? When it's in the hands of a genius like Beethoven. Or, in the case of 33 Variations, when it's in the hands of playwright Moises Kaufman." (more)
- Metro Weekly (Washington, DC's GLBT News Magazine)

"Three interconnecting stories revolve around one woman in Moisés Kaufman's new play receiving its world premiere in the Kreeger. The play is in good hands with Mary Beth Peil as that woman, a musicologist in a race with deteriorating health to complete her life's work." (more)
- Potomic Stages

"What is the nature of genius? If creating art is a form of alchemy, transforming the rawest of materials into something sublime, what mysterious power facilitates that transfiguration – the process of turning one figure into a distinctly different one?" (more)
- Talkin' Broadway

"A study of obsession, the creative process, and the pressure of time's inexorable march, Moisés Kaufman's utterly absorbing new play, 33 Variations, which is getting its world premiere at Arena Stage, promises to do for Beethoven what Proof did for mathematics and Copenhagen did for nuclear physics." (more)
- Theater Mania

"Call it a whydunit. One of the classical music world's enduring mysteries is why Ludwig van Beethoven devoted four years of his diminishing life writing 33 variations of a mediocre waltz penned by a Viennese music publisher, all for a relative pittance. That's roughly the same amount of time, and perhaps energy, that playwright-director Moises Kaufman has spent turning the curious episode into theater." (more)
- Variety

"Whatever else you may think of the elaborate theatrical collage Moisés Kaufman has assembled to explain Beethoven’s creation of an influential masterwork from an “insignificant” waltz by Anton Diabelli, the world premiere of 33 Variations is indisputably ravishing to listen to and to watch." (more)
- Washington City Paper

"A work that seems mediocre or simple can inspire beauty and genius. Such is the idea behind playwright and director Moises Kaufman's '33 Variations,' which makes its world premiere at Arena Stage's Kreeger Theatre." (more)
- Washinton Post

"It has been said that someone is waiting to escort us to the afterlife — a loved one, a beloved pet perhaps. For scholarly sleuth Katherine Brandt (Mary Beth Peil), that certain someone is her personal hero, Ludwig van Beethoven (Graeme Malcolm), whose obsessions and afflictions are the subject of Moises Kaufman's lilting and involving play..." (more)
- Washington Times

Other bits of interest

NPR story from "All Things Considered" (text / audio)