←Recommendations of We Are the Forgotten Beasts

With a nod to Sam Shepard's "True West" and Athol Fugard's "Blood Knot", Christian St. Croix shows, with "We Are The Forgotten Beasts", that he is an immense theater talent who must be reckoned with. Each of the four characters - especially the brothers - live and speak from a place of dark, nearly debilitating pain, and their phantasmagorical reveries are cathartic in their impact. This is a highly engaging work. And I look forward to reading more of this young man's plays.

A really compelling read, with finely drawn character work, relationships that keep unfolding, serious theatricality. This play had me feeling all my feelings, awake to wonder in new ways. Would love to see it staged!

Four vivid and compelling characters, each with a moving backstory, reveal three vivid and compelling fantasy worlds (one world is shared by two brothers). The fantasy worlds are coping mechanisms that allow the characters to handle the abuse and disappointments, the grief and failures, that have marred their lives. As they share the final fantasy, the possibility of healing emerges. This play takes us on a wildly theatrical and richly imaginative journey.

Who says nothing dramatic happens on a Wednesday?

A testament to the healing power of imagination, this play visits a beautiful variety of realms from sea to sky while keeping us grounded at a sweltering California motel. Miraculously, St. Croix turns these ostensibly oppressive environs into a refuge and a gateway. I love how the characters instantly accept and immerse themselves in each others’ fantasy realms. Though they are instant allies, powerful enemies abound!

The struggle is absolutely real here and the climactic scene had me on my feet while breaking my heart! (Also, BREV CAMEO!) Kudos!!!

A welcome reminder that no matter how old we get and how stressful life gets there is always room for play and imagination.

A play about play! We Are the Forgotten Beasts is a thrill to read and would be a joy to watch. Christian St. Croix embraces spectacle while at the same time grounding his play, particularly through its well-drawn characters. Difficult conversations about race, sexuality, abuse, and brotherhood fit right in with swashbuckling, space exploring, and monster slaying adventures.

A fantastical, alluring play about the spaces we create as children (or adults), be they out of a wish for whimsy and wonder, or our need for escape and a coping mechanism. St. Croix dives deep into exploring our connection with these spaces as we grow older. Do we lose them? Forget about them? What happens to them if our connection weakens? What happens to us? The cast of characters is brilliant and the playground at hand even more so, with opportunities for playful choreo and fight sequences alike. Absolutely engrossing all around and a hell of a play.

I love these characters so much. At once an intimate story of two adult brothers in a motel room and an epic candy-colored fantasy bonanza, this highly imaginative, deeply personal, extremely playful, and profoundly moving play swings big, exploring how children's imagination and play are more than just games. Family history and the set itself keep yielding up surprises, creating an aural and visual vocabulary that combines gritty naturalism with explosive make-believe. Christian St. Croix's characters may recoil from sentimentality, but they're poignant as hell nonetheless in their open hurts, longings, and abundant love. A knockout.