←Recommendations of Still Waters

Can the recurring dreams of a child following an accidental tragic loss heal the wounds between grieving parents or perpetuate that grief? This short play offers no easy answers, but Arthur Jolly creates the emotional hurt in such a dramatic way to reveal how that the mother’s nightmares haunt the couple and might possibly tear their relationship apart for good. Spellbinding work.

Grief, regret, resentment, and trauma fill every line of this tight drama. The characters here are so broken by pain yet hold onto that same pain even as it destroys them, as it's the only thing they have left of what they lost, and the only thing left that connects them. The final image of the play is haunting and scary, but the true horror is in what's inside Gabrielle and Raoul. Vivid and heartrending.

A creepy and powerful 2 (or 3) hander. Playwright Jolly packs a lot into this tight supernatural story of grieve and forgiveness.

Oh! This play touches my heart. The pain of loss and guilt is real and depicted in thir tight, intense play.

A raw, honest look at the nightmare of grief and how death takes its toll on the living! Jolly captures the internal and external conflict succinctly and masterfully taps into our human psyche. A brilliant short play rich in subtext with dream roles for actors!

A powerful capture of the grief that torments and rips apart a couple after the unthinkable has happened. Well done.

Simple, easy to stage play, yet the emotions brought out are many and complex. Arthur Jolly knows how to get the maximum out of 10 minute plays and this one on the grief of losing a child is proof of that claim. Quit reading my review and read this play.

A devastatingly powerful look at grief and the destruction of a relationship, Still Waters is a beautiful, haunting portrayal of a world collapsing into pain and misery. This play wrecked me at the Midwest Drama Conference and even a week later I’m not sure I can put it all into words. Read it. Produce it. Celebrate it. But whatever you do, you won’t be ready for the ending. Highly recommended.

I'm really not even sure how to describe this play. I saw a reading of it at the Midwest Dramatist's Convention and I was utterly struck. This is a magnificent piece of theatre, and the emotional impact that it had on me is bigger than I can describe with words. There is a moment in this play that will live with me forever--and I didn't even see it on stage. Whoever produces this play would be wise to put it at the end of the evening, because nothing will be seen after it. Marvelous, incredible work.

Gripping drama that rings so true. Jolly creates a complete world here, in just a few short pages, setting us down between two people in the throes of absolute grief, as they grapple with grieving in different ways. Crisp, compelling dialogue draws us into these characters who both possess tremendous capacities and frailties. No spoilers, but that last page, though. Read and produce this play.