←Recommendations of American Divide

"American Divide" puts us in the middle of a dystopia adjacent to our own society.

My favorite scripts are often ones which offer up no heroes or villains. We live in a gray world where what is truth is often a blurred line and I love when characters reflect that complexity. Gill has certainly captured that reflection here with this piece.

A disturbingly plausible dystopian look at a future where the borders don't just line our country lines, they've practically invaded them. Over the course of 90 tightly written pages, Gill weaves an expectation-upending and twisty thriller that is sympathetic to both the plight of the illegal immigrant as well as the enforcers who don't necessarily believe in what their job entails, but are forced to do them anyway for the sake of a living. Thought-provoking and fast-paced, "American Divide" will leave you thinking about the value we put on a human life.

Maximillian Gill has created four multi-dimensional, very human characters caught in a world that doesn't feel that far off from the world we are experiencing right now. "American Divide" is a hard-hitting, gritty roller-coaster that had me thinking about where I would stand if this actually came to pass. This is a play I would love to see staged.

Maximillian Gill’s “American Divide” is a very unique reading experience. This dystopian drama has no protagonists or antagonists, but the complexly woven objectives of these characters, and the intense and at times gritty story, is a marvelous pairing, an edge of your seat experience. “American Divide” is a writing showcase that’ll keep you on your toes.

An intense, riveting, roller-coaster of a script with twists, turns, and drops that are as thrilling as they are stomach-churning. I'd love to see this staged; I imagine it would be an edge-of-my-seat experience.

I love the way that Max gives us a group of characters we want to spend time in a bar with and thrusts them into a fictional situation that cuts very close to home, a reality that exists for many and could easily exist for many others within the near future. Full of tension, these characters share with each other just enough information to keep us intrigued while nursing their own secrets and examining the cost of seeking out a better world.

What a tightly-written, tense, powder keg of a play Gill has written here! American Divide truly offers us no clear heroes or villains--just desperate people all with credible and potent motivations and baggage. What is perhaps most impressive about this piece is Gill's world building. He has translated the hatred, fear, and divisiveness of our current socio political environment into a terrifying plausible dystopia whose rules and issues are well fleshed out in the words of these well-chosen characters. I especially appreciated the eye towards intersectional complexity in each of their stories. A powerful, of-the-moment piece!

Truths, half-truths,stories, reality - all is blurred in Gill’s American Divided. The play moves quickly through reveals, bluffs, and hope when there is no hope. Our internet gives us a lot of black and white. Gill eschews heroes and villains and offers us instead people with challenging lives trying to keep their humanity. It’s a rare play where you root for everyone but Gill makes it happen. It’s a meaningful play for our times.

In my life as a freelance journalist, I once interviewed a theater luminary, who's words kept cropping up as I turned the pages of this prescient, thrilling new play. That performer said that the first theatre was the stories we told around the first fires - and there's something in this incredible world that harkens to the kernel of humanness that can still be found, even in the most brutal of spaces. Gill's dystopian world-building, cracking dialogue and layered subtext make this play a page-turner. Is this a reimagined America, or a country revealing what it's always been? Just: Wow.

We are pleased to support this play! It was a Finalist for the 2019 New Works Festival at Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas, Texas.