A tree-loving play that pulls off Daphne’s side of the Apollo story, a feat Ovid himself would admire, given the chance, is Aly Kantor’s astonishing and brilliant “They have become the forest.” The outdoor cousin to her indoor OCCUPIED, I love most the play’s gradual build from fun and playful to perceptive and ominous to deep and powerful. This material in the hands of any other writer would fall short of a mythical touchstone for our times. Aly's work is essential to whom we are. [7-4-26]

Aly Kantor exercises her gift for reinterpreting Classical mythology, combining two perhaps lesser-known tales into a love story that's queer, funny, sad, terrifying, enraging, and heart-swelling. Myths endure across time because humans are who we are, ever and always: straining against societal restrictions, stumbling as we figure ourselves out and learn to get what we want...and finding out the hard way that men, alas, can be toxic and deadly. But resistance and love endure. Magic.

Chef's kiss to this beautiful ode to Greek mythology, male brutality, the quest to live as one wishes. A thoroughly involving tale woven from strands both ancient and newfangled. Huzzah, Aly Kantor, you've done it again.