←Recommendations of The Known Universe (Part Three of The Second World Trilogy)

As fond as I am of Sickles' TARTARUS (so, so fond!) I believe the SECOND WORLD TRILOGY is Sickles' magnum opus, thus far.
THE KNOWN UNIVERSE is our payoff for sticking with Teddy/Lincoln and Anzor/Andy for five decades, through redacted letters, penguins and deep-sea/space exploration.
Devious bastard that he is, Sickles laces all-too possible scientific catastrophe and encyclopedic knowledge with the more irresistible, most adorable, most everyday cast known to humanity. Which makes the conclusion all the more heartwrenchingly brave.
This is a love letter to love, family, sex and science. Sickles and the audience leave triumphant.

I sobbed, like big, caught-in-your-check sobs, throughout THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. Scott Sickles pulls at all the heart strings in this play. This is an excellent stand alone piece, and a show stopping conclusion to THE SECOND WORLD TRILOGY. We get to live a lifetime with Teddy and Anzor these three plays through their struggle, heartache, and loss.

This is a beautiful play that I would love to see staged. Bravo, Scott! HIGHLY RECOMMENED! Like stop whever you are doing and read all three plays!

The final installment of the Second World trilogy is the end... but it's also a hopeful and compelling story about the lives of characters we've come to love and care about. Yes, there's no doubt that the end is approaching, but not without a fight and passion for the past and the present and the overwhelming comfort of being in the arms -- real and virtual -- of those we have loved for so long. A masterful end to a saga that needs to be shared and loved.

A trilogy about the end of the world (minor spoiler) comes to a stunning conclusion. Sickles presents the stakes right at the outset and then lets us settle in to enjoy these characters and a journey full of pain and loss, love and comfort. Those of us who have followed the two central characters from the beginning will delight in seeing where they are now as well as callbacks both poignant and humorous. I'm so pleased to have taken this journey to the end with them.

Everything you know and love is about to come to an end. Sickles makes this a concrete, emotional reality by focusing the story -- indeed, the entire "The Second World" trilogy -- on two men in love and their families. The structure provides a "life flashing before our eyes" and the characters' reactions make them feel vibrant and real.

Everything ends: Earth, our families. And this is a fitting end to "The Second World" trilogy. Very highly recommended.

Although "Known Universe" can be performed as a stand-alone, it gains considerable resonance and affect if produced as part of the "Second World" trilogy. This is the bleakest of the plays, and offers a final cautionary note concerning climate change that is both inevitable and horrifying. Like an opera (say "Götterdämmerung" or "Bohème") where a reprise of earlier material at the ending gathers the whole together, the re-enactment of Teddy's story sent to Anzor in Part One unifies the trilogy with emotional force. A same-day staging of the trilogy would be great for a serious, ambitious theater.

While the gloomy pall of inevitability hangs over this piece, it remains a warm-hearted and poignant end of Sickles' trilogy. I so appreciated how distinct each of these pieces was, while living within the same theatrical world. In "The Known Universe," we have the opportunity to follow the experiences of a unique blended family of multi-dimensional characters in a way that satisfyingly punctuates the compelling trajectory of Anzor and Teddy, now grown. I look forward to following this piece's journey!

Part Three of Scott Sickles’ Second World Trilogy, THE KNOWN UNIVERSE is both heartbreaking and horrifying, by far the darkest of the three plays, and in its own quietly devastating way brings Sickles’ epic trilogy to a sad but strangely beautiful conclusion.