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WHEN YOU'RE GONE by Alina Rios

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  • Greg Burdick:
    3 Apr. 2019
    “ There is a sadness that extends well beyond grief after experiencing trauma. It’s a torpor that pulls you downward, and seemingly never lets go. Alina Rios expertly captures this feeling in “When You’re Gone.” The speaker’s staggering double-loss is felt deeply when reading this piece. It could easily be one of the most memorable in a showcase of anti- gun violence plays. A profound challenge for a single actress. ”
  • Chelsea White:
    11 Feb. 2019
    “ When You're Gone is a stunning portrayal of grief and healing written for the CodeRed/Faith project. There was no shortage of visual imagery in this monologue that deals with a mother suffering from losing her child and husband although it is the unseen husband that motivates her to keep going with life. You feel an immense empathy for the mother character and your heart aches knowing how many women have gone through the same tragedy. ”
  • Mark Loewenstern:
    6 Feb. 2019
    “ I love this warm and layered portrait of grief. ”
  • Jennifer O'Grady:
    4 Feb. 2019
    “ An emotionally powerful play about grief that imagines, with great truthfulness and sensitivity, what for many of us is unimaginable--the murder of a child. Lingers long after you stop reading it. ”
  • Lee R. Lawing:
    2 Feb. 2019
    “ Such a heartbreaking monologue that Rios has written for the CodeRed/Faith Project. With chilling dialogue that cuts to the very soul of the reader and anyone who hears this read or sees it performed, they will never forget this play because it's just that good. How does someone face such a tragedy. This play hints at so much sorrow and pain and just the need to move and that powerful last bit of action carried my soul to a new high. ”
  • Rachael Carnes:
    11 Jan. 2019
    “ A play about grief that will shatter you. Rios deftly builds this taut play — Not a sketch — An arc, a full story, in five brief but powerful pages. There's a communion here, a gravity that feels suspended, as though we, the audience, are caged along with this character's mourning, witness and bearing her loss. It's a play written in response to gun violence, but Rios smartly taps into the universality of losing someone. A poignant, visceral piece. So alive, even as it trains a bright light on death. ”
  • Asher Wyndham:
    30 Dec. 2018
    “ This will wreck your heart. Rios captures perfectly that painful stasis after the death of a love one -- in the case of this play, inspired by true events, the loss of two family members to gun violence. The words sent heavenward, the character's holding of her own body, the sadness on display is such an authentic display of mourning, it's immediately felt in the body, in the heart. A perfect choice for any staged reading or production on gun violence. ”