←Recommendations of A Complicated Hope

I saw this beautiful play during its 2022 run at Essential Theatre. It's a moving experience, drawing us into an exquisitely twisting-turning-tangling cat's cradle of love and grief. John creates so many moments of complicated tension and tenderness between characters. The nonlinear structure conjures grief's associative, out-of-time collage of emotion and memory, and also finally provides the complicated hope the audience yearns for.

A lovely, moving piece painted with the delicate, deft hand of playwright John Mabey. "Glimmers of hope in the hogwash" captures this play beautifully--raw and real and yet lyrical. Understanding, compassionate. Mabey loves his characters: you will too.

This play is like a beautiful painting. "Sunrise on the water." There is so much depth to it, the more you look at it, the more you discover. And the more you learn about yourself. I can see exactly why this won so many awards. I can actually hear the words out loud in my head. Engaging, heartbreaking...and yet, as intended, with a ray of hope.

JOHN MABEY is one of my favorite playwrights. In this wonderful play, we discover so much about the complexities of an interracial relationship, homophobia, guilt and hope, tension and love, and the coping mechanisms we use to deal with the death of a loved one. As I read “A Complicated Hope”, I felt the turmoil of the three characters, who had to face their innermost grief, lost love, and hope in their own way. This is an excellent play. There is so much to learn, feel, and enjoy! Please read and produce this play!

I was compelled to read this play by the very skillful playwright John Mabey, given the amount of awards and productions it's rightfully recieved. John describes to us a tale of complicated hope as well as complicated grief and complicated emotions. This is truly an excellent, compelling and moving play, all that with just three, albeit complex, characters. Excellent.

This play's power lies in its compelling truths about the grieving process in loss and charts paths that lie in complication and honesty. Beautiful, sparkling, and poignant dialogue.

The play tackles life’s biggest occasions (love, grief, loss, family). In Mabey’s skilled hands, we are gifted with a personal story that is everyone’s. We know these characters, we root for their journeys. We forgive foibles. We hope for the best. There is more than a complicated hope at play here. There is complicated love, a complicated family, and a sense of gratitude that with all the complications, we are the better for them.

A powerful play that compellingly explores grief, loss, family, and identity. The three characters' journeys intersect across time in ways that are heart-wrenching and true. The dialogue sparkles with feeling and insight. I am hard pressed to convey the extent of my enthusiasm for this piece. The well-realized parts merge into a powerful, resonant, larger whole.

A razor sharp play about loss which refuses to grieve. Instead it celebrates the truth that 'caring' and 'loving' overlap constantly and are integral parts of 'families' however they are imagined. The characters are warm and true and the flow of scenes is so finely crafted that the perceptive dialogue manages to cut and heal at the same time. A really fine piece.

Stories of loss can be complicated and difficult to write but John Mabey shows extraordinary skill here as he guides his audience through the heartbreaking events of this family's life as they exprience loss, secrecy, emotional change and relationship complexity. Its a beautifully written piece that is sure to have any audience feeling with/for the characters and will have an audience feeling privileged they were able to see this piece of the characters lives. It doesn't suprise me that its had such a prominent production history.