This short play is at once modern and nostalgic, hard hitting and gentle. It strips everything aside but what is essential and precious about life on this planet. Bravo, playwright.

I admire so much the quiet way Mathew Green achieves a zen-like thematic effect in THE BASEMENT OF GREATEST HAPPINESS. He suggests that our greatest happiness is not so much a hyperbolic state, but something more akin to gratitude for the lives we've been given and have lived. It's hard to imagine a play that gives more cause for us to feel affection for ourselves, the human race, as exemplified by Thomas, Julia, and Olivia. A remarkable achievement of dignity under extreme duress. [7-17-26]

Mathew Green achieves a small miracle here, managing to wring humanity and the last vestiges of hope from the direst of scenarios. This playwright's magic is found in the details, the way the simplest, sometimes unexpected memories supply the essential components for understanding why we live, even when we're about to die. This play is riveting - dramatically and emotionally - and will hold a breathless audience in the palm of its hand.