←Recommendations of That Must Be the Entrance to Heaven or, The Dawn Behind the Black Hole

A powerful and moving play about the fight to achieve both in this life and for the next that brings the visceral experience alive for us. Excellent.

I was so lucky to catch a reading of this play at Latinx Playwrights Circle. Franky Gonzalez has delivered another knockout of play. A thrilling, gut-wrenching piece about the amount of punishment we are willing to take to achieve our dreams. Gonzalez does a remarkable job of showing us the vulnerable side of these warriors and each fighter would be a dream role for an actor to play. (Juan’s monologue…can you say “Tony award, please!”) This play would be absolutely spectacular to see staged. It needs to happen!

I saw a reading of this play at Latinx Playwrights. Franky's characters and structure draw the audience in and create sympathy for even unsympathetic seeming characters. Each one has depth and vulnerability. Throughout the play, the stakes rise until the inevitable challenge must be faced. Franky weaves poetry and cosmic nature into the relationships and language. This will come alive on the stage and be a big meal for all technical people involved but it will be worth it when the audience responds.

I was so fortunate to see a reading of this play at LatinX Playwrights Circle and - wow. Franky has such an incredible gift of crafting poetry from his words and creating such intricate, desperate, and heartbreaking characters. As someone pointed out in the reading, this play would also be a fight choreographers dream because the ballet in the boxing is just unreal. In this play we are gifted four tough characters, each being driven by something clear and specific, even as they run themselves down we understand the extremes of the stakes at play. Really incredible!

Spectacular, poetic, devastating, thrilling, gut-wrenching, moving. These are only a few adjectives I can use to describe this incredible play. Centering on four boxers all fighting for their version of the American dream, this hard-hitting play asks what dreams are worth fighting, striving, and ultimately dying for. Intersecting bloodsport with cosmology, this play aims high and smashes its target. This play also contains some of my favorite monologues from any contemporary play—the poetry contained in them will stun you. Bravo!

A tightly constructed epic that pits ambition, talent, destiny, and grit in a no holds barred battle of wills. Gonzalez's would be champions are phenomenally constructed contradictions that use their battered minds as masterfully as they throw fists. When all is said and done, one must wonder if winning is the same as victory. By the time the final bell rings out, it is evident that there are much more pertinent dangers to overcome than the other guy in the ring.