←Recommendations of PERMISSION

The conversation no parent wants to have and there's no right way to have it. We would do anything to protect our children and there doesn't seem to be a way for us to guarantee they won't be harmed. The best we can do is prepare them for the reality of what could happen. Powerful and well done.

I saw Permission at the Secret Theatre's Act One: One Act Festival and it blew me away! Carnes perfectly captured the dance we must do when parenting a teenage daughter. Nothing truly prepares us for how intensely our past experiences dictate our parenting styles, until we're confronted with it. And Carnes' play absolutely illustrates this.

I saw this tense, terse play tonight at The Secret Theatre’s One Act Festival, and was quite taken with Carne’s multi-layered portrait of a hover mother trying desperately to keep the trauma of her past from feeding her fear for her daughter’s future. A truthful, moving, and timely play.

I was fortunate to have seen a wonderful production of Carnes’ play, “Permission,” at the International Human Rights Arts Festival in NYC. The confrontational mother/teenage daughter relationship seems familiar until the real motivation for the impasse is revealed. The mother’s fear for her daughter’s safety is so crippling that she won’t allow her daughter to experience the activities which ultimately may empower her. It is a thought-provoking, two-hander that illuminates and enlightens us to the sad realities of our society. Highly recommended.

I saw this last night at the International Human Rights Art Festival and it blew me away! The situation is right up there with the most pressing issues of our days. The monologue is tremendous! What a well written play! It was directed a very specific way, but I could see the writer has left a lot to interpretation which is enormously generous for directors to do what they will with it. I imagine it will have quite a life onstage!

I never saw the ending coming, and actually went back and reread this two more times just to analyze how this mother/daughter conversation changed from an everyday one to something deeper and more disturbing. The play's title takes on an added resonance once the real reason for this conversation comes out. This is a winner.

A beautiful and sad play that starts out as completely recognizable and mundane parent/child interactions and morphs elegantly into another kind of utterly recognizable and devastating parent/child interaction for today. Rachael Carnes does a lovely job of tackling what the idea of permission is and how it weaves itself into every kind of situation. To do this so effortlessly in a short play is a sign of the playwright's skill and talent.

It's always hard as a child to see past the image you have of your parents as these tyrannical figures that have been old and ancient for as long as you can remember. Rachael Carnes not only shows us this but forces us to swallow the pill that they were like us once too. And their fears and seemingly dictatorial actions are grounded. PERMISSION is a beautiful piece of theatre and I hope it continues to be produced because Ms. Carnes has something very special here.

What I love about this is that my kids always think I'm just being a parent. They don't get that I was their age or understand that every admonishment or warning comes back with wisdom borne of experience. What I hate is that got so sucked in to that mentality that I didn't see the ending coming and I should have. Good job!

There are conversations that parents have with children where the child realizes that their parent may not be just the dictator of the house but also a person whose experiences and fears guide so much of their seemingly illogical decisions regarding their children. Rachael Carnes creates that moment when a daughter sees her mother in a way that one is never quite prepared for but will nevertheless have at some point. It's a coming of age story that rings so true and, tragically, is relevant today and will probably be relevant tomorrow. A fine play with heart and purpose.