←Recommendations of Drift

A brilliant poetic depiction of grief as mirrored in the rhythms of farming life. Throughout a season we see the strength it takes a family to survive in a new community that doesn't accept them. Haunting.

A moving glimpse into the lives of the Americans who farm our land and are struggling with grief as well as the next steps forward. Powerful and definitely will leave it's mark.

This play is beautiful, poetic, and heartbreaking. Gabridge takes us by the hand and leads us into the depths of this family’s grief. The story unfolds in a succinct and theatrical way, allowing all our senses to fully come alive. We experience each distinct season on the farm and get caught up in the tragedy of this broken, grieving family and the dilemma of how to grow sustainable produce. Fantastic roles for four strong actors!

A gorgeous and haunting theatrical poem of a play that explores grief, guilt, moving on, and intersectional identity with well-chosen words and scenes. I very much appreciated the collage-like irregular structure that mirrored and uneven and inelegant rhythms of grief. All of these characters are so beautifully realized, both in relation to one another and individually, and their potently written soliloquies punctuate the whole piece beautifully. There are some exquisite stage pictures described that just felt so uniquely theatrical--everything agricultural, Jamal's computer editing, tactile interactions with flora and dirt--and I would so love to see them live.

Economical and lyrical, Drift is also wonderfully fresh and full of life, the farm, the earth, the flowers and sounds - the buzzing and the longing, and the loud scene that will resonate in performance full of the pain of grief without having to explain anything. There is also a quiet way the play has of getting to the heart of the matter, far beyond the issues at hand.

Haunting and lyrical, this play provides fertile ground for pain, loss, conflict, and compassion. No easy answers are offered on pesticide use or cultural divides--just a tangled mix of human longing and fear.

This is a haunting play about all we have lost and what we can gain. With an economy of language and action unlike I have seen before it shifts the earth within you and you are absolutely changed by its almost imperceptible yet seismic movements, just like that of a plant flowering into bloom; you didn't see it, but somehow, by the end, there is a flower. This play is like a fine gardening tool, it opens you up and plants something there and it grows and grows long after you've experienced it. Someone please do this incredible play.

Spare, economical, and haunting, I love how Drift brings those of us far estranged from how our food is grown into the lives of the people who harvest it. Soil, tomatoes, weeds, and flowers are all characters in this play, as much as the quartet of voices the story centers around -- and the play has a unique and intriguing way with using metaphors of the land to explore grief in a new dimension. We did a reading of this play at Huntington directed by Marti Lyons; the play is very actable, vivid and compelling.