←Recommendations of Best of Honor

High celabratocity for the worthable uni-quality of Best of Honor! Soltero-Brown delivers a damn do of a duo whose rages raise hell. From its opening beat, the rapid-fire assault of nonstop verbal shorthand sweep the audience into a tsunami of implication and accusation. This is one to surely leave the pooples which gatherate brainiating with thoughtations.

Soltero-Brown choregraphs words for the stage like Mohammad Ali choreographed his fights in the ring. Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. Rope-a-dope. Jules and Nat are tasked with the daunting task of preparing Beni and Shea for the impending wedding. The four engage in verbal sparring ala Ali with lots of points scored and several notable haymakers. My favorite was Nat’s idea of sex at a wedding, but props to the officiator for the incomprehensible, hilarious monologue. Looks like Beni and Shea are headed for rawmance and wedded priss. And for that, we’re not pissed!

Soltero-Brown wields razor-sharp dialogue like a scalpel as he peels away layers of the rancid onion that is love/life/relationships in this skillful dark comedy. The complicated dance of words between these friends and (erstwhile) lovers as they prepare on a wedding day is syncopated by wholly recognizable anxiety and doubt. The language, which fluctuates between the crisply pared-down and heightened tongue-twistery is masterful—Pinteresque and Shakespearean at once. BEST OF HONOR has much to say about the ways we state and misstate our intentions and how we interpret and misinterpret the truths of even our most intimate relationships.

This is a meaty piece, and as you dive in, you're down the rabbit hole that Soltero-Brown intends. The rhythm of the dialogue here is exquisite, rapid fire back and forth and then occasional explosions of prose that expand our understanding of the characters but deepen the conflict that is ever increasing as the narrative proceeds. The ending is perfect; we've spent all this time watching things dissolve until language itself unravels. This was a fascinating downward spiral to observe and brings to question much of what we "believe" about "true love" and societal expectations of where that may lead.

Soltero-Brown’s darkly comic, super-smart, wholly original play about one very complicated wedding-day is a marvelous blend of theatricality and humor, as four characters who matter deeply to each other can’t quite figure out how to move past the problems each sees, including an obsession with current politics. The use of the wedding-officiator is also wonderfully fresh and boundary-pushing as well as very funny. Soltero-Brown has a great gift for mining the pains and absurdities of life and love with wit, compassion, and truth, in dialogue that offers much to collaborators. This is a playwright to watch.

A funny, straightforward play about a wedding gone wrong. And not like, a Meg Ryan wedding gone wrong. It's about expectations, and communicating, and what fights are, and how to do them, and what they do to us, and what a best friend is, and also, yes, politics. It's current. It's insightful. The ideas are well formed but not too heavy, the humor is abundant but not out of place, and the dialogue is real and not stylized or esoteric. It's the kind of stuff that when you read it you just want those words coming out of your mouth.