←Recommendations of Marianas Trench (Part One of The Second World Trilogy)

I was incredibly fortunate to see a reading of this play as part of Portland Stage's Livestream Series. Marianas Trench is an absolutely fantastic play. Sickles has a gift with words, even those that are [redacted]. Teddy and Anzor's pen-pal friendship will tug at your heart strings. This play will stick with you and have you thinking about it, and the world Sickles has created (or maybe predicted?) long after it ends. Can't wait to see it on stage. Well done!

This play is a FINALIST for the 2020-2021 In-Progress New Play Reading Series at Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri. It is our pleasure to support MARIANAS TRENCH.

I’ve never read anything quite like Scott Sickles' riveting Marianas Trench. This is a story of deep feelings, real fears, love, loss, and light piercing darkness. This moving piece would be great anywhere, and particularly effective in a black-box theater with a minimalist set.

I've been wanting to read this play for so long and am so glad I finally did! It's so imaginative and rich and layered and dramatic and theatrical but, most of all, SO ENGAGING. I was glued to every page. Wonderful, wonderful work.

The term "dystopian" harks to a dark and oppressive future, but while that may be what Scott Sickles had in mind when he wrote this first part of the Second World Trilogy, it shimmers, albeit dimly, with hope. Yes, it's a world of darkness and foreboding, but the characters live in their dreams and promises of freedom, of personal triumph over the oppression, both real and self-imposed, and the strength of humanity carries it forward and out of the depths. Hope springs eternal...and it will rise up.

This play was intense! Sickles immerses you in a dystopian world with the first beat and carries it all the way through the end with poignant dialogue and well-written characters. Sickles has created a complexly woven tapestry of emotion as we witness the growth of these two young boys, and the decline of their countries. Ultimately, Sickles’s has an important didactic element encapsulated in “Marianas Trench:” finding positivity in times of turmoil and oppression. This piece is an array of flowers that bloomed in a wasteland. One of the best I’ve read in recent memory.

An unabashedly epic and poignant story of two young boys who find solace in each other as the countries they live in rush towards self-destruction. Sickles encompasses many themes in this play, but the one he explores the most astutely is the beauty we find in times of oppression. The letters that Teddy and Anzor write to each other are beautiful to read-- the one about the squid particularly excited me with its theatricality. Throughout, you wait for the moment when Teddy and Anzor will meet face-to-face, and when they don't... well, there are two more plays!

I love dystopian stories, and I fully enjoyed the intrigue, the details of the totalitarian nation, and the world-building of a distressingly plausible future, but what caught me off guard was how compelling I found the two protagonists and their relationship. Both are struggling in different ways but both are real and richly imagined characters. The conceit of using letters to illuminate their relationship and the oppression of the state is clever and extremely effective. So now it looks like I’m in for the whole trilogy!

"Marianas Trench" is beautifully complex: a dystopian drama, a coming-of-age tale, a story of first love and longing, and the uncertainty that first love and longing bring. This full-length play is frightening, sad, heartbreaking, and more than a little bittersweet. Very highly recommended.

On June 5, 2020, I attended Portland Stage's reading of "Marianas Trench" as part of its Little Festival of the Unexpected. All the emotions -- and not just the romantic ones -- were heightened by beautiful performances. I'd love to attend a full production of this play.

Part One of Scott Sickles’ Second World Trilogy, MARIANAS TRENCH is huge, complex, terrifying, and gorgeous. A stunning work of art, it is intensely personal and quite possibly his best. Bravo, Scott!