←Recommendations of The Age of Understanding or, The Character of Dad

I had the pleasure of hearing a reading of this at the Mid-American Theatre Conference, and I'm bowled over by its honesty, its humor, the way Gonzales grapples with the changing landscape as a new father looks back towards his own father's dysfunctions, and towards his new baby's future. It's universally relatable, yet with Gonzales' penchant for emotional reveal at-once subtle, human and heartbreaking.

In less than ten pages, Franky Gonzales chronicles the history of fatherhood, and he does it with gut-wrenchingly brutal honesty. At times funny, at times upsetting, and always moving, this is a beautiful ten minutes, and a tour de force for any actor lucky enough to be the husband.

I suppose I should get used to the simple fact that Franky Gonzalez can always touch me with his writing, but I will never cease to be amazed by his intimate and powerful connection to his characters and how they step off the page and into our world. This new short play has all of that, and the portrait of a father trying to relate, to connect, to understand his newborn son all the while trying to reconcile his own feelings about his own father will resonate deeply with you and an audience. Thank you, Franky.

Just what the world needed... ANOTHER deeply personal, searingly intimate, occasionally hilarious, brutally truthful, absolutely wonderful meditation on love, parenthood, family, marriage, and the labyrinthine interconnections between human beings, paradoxically and simultaneously invulnerable and fragile, that bind us through time, distance, generations, agony, and bliss both present and absent. ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE!!!

This time with Shakespeare!

The play bravely explores and explodes the myths of insta-bonding between parents and their children (and children and their parents), opening wounds of fear, panic, desertion, shame, and the weaknesses we inherit from our upbringing, all in a loving embrace of hope.