UPDATE April 14, 2011. Classical Voice of North Carolina just posted its online review this morning. Again, you can read it in its entirety here and I’ll quote a short section:
Thirteen young performers essay some sixty roles, differentiated by the slightest of costume alterations — hats, scarves, jackets — and their collective brilliance as an ensemble. Playing Laramie residents and the Tectonic troupe as well as occasional interlopers such as national reporters, politicians, and the likes of the odious Fred Phelps, they carry out the kind of fundamental, ecclesiastic ceremony in which theatre itself is rooted, complete with catharsis: while some of the participants of these interviews remain strikingly unmoved in their hostile complacency, yet there are also those for whom these painful events are transformative — even, in a way, sanctified.
I’ve been so attentive to drawing the connection between documentary forms (theater and film) that will converge this weekend with the advent of our show while Full Frame happens in downtown Durham that it took these reviews to remind me the show’s proximity to Passover and Easter and the idea of sharing communion in remembrance. We hope to see you at our “table” this weekend.
OLDER POST — The show received its first review in today’s (Wednesday, April 13) Independent Weekly. Three and a 1/2 stars from critic Byron Woods. You can read the entire piece here. I’ll just quote a snippet:
I should praise here the moving work under Jeff Storer’s direction by a number of actors, including Emma Miller, Spencer Paez, Andy Chu, Naomi Riemer, Ben Bergmann and Afftene Taylor, an able chorus which clearly, for the most part, voices the complex and dissonant chords of a group of bewildered, concerned, frightened, offended—and divided—inhabitants of a small town torn apart by homophobic violence, whose flaws were endlessly dissected before a worldwide audience.
Here’s to sharing the story with more folks this weekend!