THE STRAIGHTS
"The finely performed play currently playing — T. Adamson’s The Straights — has only tossed around a bit of tumbleweed set dressing and hung a single screen. But the space makes it look rich: Set off to its perfect advantage, The Straights glows like a ring in a velvet box."
"The director Will Detlefsen does strong work with his cast, which has several stand-outs. Paredes is the perfect center for this often wandering shaggy-dog story, unaffected and magnetic. And Fredrick, in the showier role, is a syringe of adrenaline. The play has many themes, but this is its dramaturgical question. If this is what anger sounds like now, what language do we reserve for love?"
~Helen Shaw at Vulture~
"The director Will Detlefsen does strong work with his cast, which has several stand-outs. Paredes is the perfect center for this often wandering shaggy-dog story, unaffected and magnetic. And Fredrick, in the showier role, is a syringe of adrenaline. The play has many themes, but this is its dramaturgical question. If this is what anger sounds like now, what language do we reserve for love?"
~Helen Shaw at Vulture~
MACHINALIA
LARVAE
"In the relatively minimalistic setting at the Alchemical Theatre Laboratory’s studio, the two actors make excellent use of the massive space, and director Will Detlefsen does a very fine job at staging the show, while incorporating plenty of props – as well as smart creative choices regarding the lighting – that make it easier for the audience to forget that they’re sitting in a white studio not unlike one where actors might rehearse…not an easy task, for productions such as this."
~Anthony J Piccione at OnStage~
~Anthony J Piccione at OnStage~
BLASTED
"Detlefsen represents Kane’s violence thoroughly and completely. There is no sex with pants on or conveniently-covered stage combat, and every orgasm is reached in due time. Perhaps the most disturbing bit of stage action is actor Logan George’s hurried eating of two full English breakfasts with one bare hand, simply because he performs the action fully."
"But Detlefsen’s direction, while thorough, is also simple and minimal, staging the text sans flourish or unnecessary abstraction. And the simplicity is a rich simplicity, replete with sharp textual understanding. A deep current of palpable emotional trauma courses steadily through every violent scene, leaving no empty displays of horror."
"Detlefsen’s Blasted is a successfully executed staging of a difficult play. But, more importantly, it’s a keenly relevant one. Detlefsen subtly accentuates the unsettling satire underneath this seeming horror flick of a play."
~Teri Madonna at Not Your Average Downtown~
"But Detlefsen’s direction, while thorough, is also simple and minimal, staging the text sans flourish or unnecessary abstraction. And the simplicity is a rich simplicity, replete with sharp textual understanding. A deep current of palpable emotional trauma courses steadily through every violent scene, leaving no empty displays of horror."
"Detlefsen’s Blasted is a successfully executed staging of a difficult play. But, more importantly, it’s a keenly relevant one. Detlefsen subtly accentuates the unsettling satire underneath this seeming horror flick of a play."
~Teri Madonna at Not Your Average Downtown~
