←Recommendations of Hold On

I was happy to attend this high school reunion and be charmed by a night of complicated reconnection. Terrific dialogue creates a story that goes down as easy as 'recreational sugar.' An affecting (and effective!) piece of theater, one that also features a great soundtrack from yesteryear(s)!

A meeting at a reunion stirs up old memories, with an ultimately poignant discussion of how lives do and do not move on, how hindsight is not always a good thing, and how our perceptions change with time. Weibezahl weaves a thought provoking story of past versus present, and who we are.

Every now and then when you read a script, you can hear the voice of a specific actor just absolutely killing it in a role. In my mind, Natasha Lyonne smashed it out of the park. The dialogue here is grand. When Heather and Greg are on the same page, there's an easy feeling of nostalgia and happiness. You know, maybe we can reconnect. When they're in tension, there are severely biting monologues dripping with aggression and pain and longing. Actors lucky enough to stand in this show will have one helluva meal to enjoy.

Robert Weibezahl has provided the world with a play that packs a lot of punch and requires a great deal of unpacking. Two old high school friends coincidentally end up in the same spot at a reunion because of the same benign reason (escape the noise) and it turns into this crazy ride through the present and the past, both characters choosing to slow play the cards that life has dealt them. One of my new favorite lines of any play is "Fear of giving up what is known." The high intensity monologues are outstanding. Brilliant play. Highly recommend.

Long-held secrets and memories – good and bad – surface when two high school friends reconnect at their 25th reunion. The paths taken by Heather and Greg could not be more different, yet both paths have led to remarkably similar degrees of disappointment and disillusionment. Robert Weibezahl does a great job of defining very real characters, giving them realistic dialogue, and providing a satisfying slow reveal as secrets, layer by layer, are uncovered. Hold On is an excellent dramatic two-hander.

First of all, HOLD ON demonstrates that Robert Weibezahl has an ear. The way his characters talk is the way recognizable humans talk, and behave, as well. Second, HOLD ON is such a brilliant set-up for a play that I'm mad at myself for not coming up with it. A not-so-chance encounter at a small-town high school reunion -- Frost's two roads that diverged and made all the difference -- or maybe it didn't. Tender and vivid, with good meaty bits for the actors to strut their stuff. Extremely engaging -- audiences and actors will love this play.

As Thomas Wolfe said: you can't go home again. Even when you've never left, whether physically, emotionally, or both. And that is the pain that Weibezahl captures so poignantly in this two-character drama: all the "what ifs," the "if onlys," the "coulda shoulda wouldas" that make up the years between high school and middle age. Beautifully rendered, this tender character-driven piece about two people whose wants and needs are so voracious they may never be fulfilled, or even acknowledged, lands right where it's intended: in the gut, and in the heart.