Review Roundup: DELIRIUM Opens Off-Broadway

The New York Premiere of the -Arlekin! production of Delirium is now playing Off-Broadway. A new adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s Frenzy for Two, Or More, Delirium is adapted and directed by recent Lortel Award winner Igor Golyak. Delirium will now run through Saturday, November 7, 2026 at The Space at Irondale.

International Artists Andrey Burkovskiy and Chulpan Khamatova star in this comic, deeply human piece about survival, love, and the fragile architecture of reality.

In Delirium, a couple is locked in an endless argument while the world outside collapses into chaos. As the boundaries between reality and delusion dissolve, Khamatova (“Her”) and Burkovskiy (“Him”) inhabit a space where conflict becomes connection, and contradiction becomes a form of devotion. What begins as absurdist comedy reveals its deeper truth: two people fighting not against each other, but for each other’s continued existence.

Kyle Turner, New York Theatre Guide: That these characters relentlessly tease each other even as everything outside seems to fall apart makes Delirium striking in its comedy and sorrow. On the one hand, Him and Her have each other. On the other, they may fail to recognize the reality of their situation and its consequences on everyone else.

Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: These are the moments that made it worth sitting through a production whose chaos, for all its inventive variation, requires some patience. The performers demonstrated an endurance far more impressive than my own; As they smothered each other with heavy mattresses, jumped on top of one another, rushed up and down stairs, it started to hurt my back just to watch them.

Loren Noveck, ExeuntNYC: And above all, Denis Zabikaya drops us into their world, both the war zone and the domestic fantasias they indulge in, through his sound design (with the help of Anna Drubich’s music), which mixes practical effects with recordings (and even the occasional bit of audience participation) so that each sound comes from a defined location. The sonic environment has a realism that lets the surreal and absurd qualities of the piece flare brighter against its backdrop.

Average Rating: 76.7%

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