It's not easy sustaining dramatic momentum, interest and heft with a two-character play, but Donna Hoke manages this and then some with this tight electrifying "ring match." The power plays between Yasmine and Cane, their sexual games, dark humor, and the ever-intensifying stakes keep this play humming along like a modern take on Last Tango in Paris, but with a twist or two. What rich and challenging roles for actors to boot! This is a story that will always be timely.

One of our company's guiding vision statements reads, ‘Provocative theatre. Contemporary playwrights. New works.’ This play encompasses all of that. Donna Hoke has crafted a piece which is simultaneously realistic and surreal - we recognize these characters, this couple, from our own lives, as people we know, people we spend time with. Yasmine, with a caring heart and passion for life, and Cane, with an easygoing attitude and carefree outlook. We spend the play learning and understanding who these people are - separately and together - and are destroyed with them at the end. I cannot recommend it highly enough!

After about 10 pages into THE WAY IT IS, I realized I recognized Cane and Yasmine in several of the people I already know, and could see the brilliance of Donna Hoke's writing talent. Visceral and unapologetic, layered and true to the character, Donna is deserving of all the awards she's won. Excellent read!