Recommended by Scott Sickles

“Water undoes me.”

The heartbreaking resonance of those three words in the midst of a lovely soliloquy in a play filled with poetry… “Water undoes me” undoes me.

While the actors need not be, the style, tone, and emotionality of the piece is undeniably Japanese. Like shadows projected on the paper walls of a pagoda, the characters’ souls know darkness and a sorrow that defies light. Words are their swords and shields, and the goal is life… at least for one more day.

Breathtakingly elegant, dreamlike but grounded. This play is a testament to compassion and hope.

There’s a righteousness that comes with hypocrisy. It increases exponentially when it comes to abuse, especially the abuse of one’s children. Who has the right to do things to your kid and who doesn’t.

Children themselves can manifest an equally powerful righteousness, as destructive as their abusers’, especially when they understand those abusers have handed them the weapon of leverage and taught them to wield it.

Cathro presents the culmination of a multitude of sins, violations, and counterattacks, theatrically kept being the veil of the confessional.
Unseen twists and revelations abound. Striking and disturbing.

There’s a “which came first” conundrum in the moral pathology of this murderer. How can one not understand the anguish and reactivity of a man shamed by a family who paid people to imprison and torture him so he could be “fixed” when nothing was wrong. There’s much heartbreak to be had, especially because of a life wasted because the child he used to be though he ran out of options. Martin gives us a story of sacrifice and mercy with moral complexity and absolute heartbreak.

How much does a person owe another when they’ve already given them a lifetime? Is “‘til death do us part” meant to be literal, when the spouse we know has degenerated - neurologically, emotionally, and behaviorally - into a hostile stranger? What happiness are you entitled to? Powerful questions both asked and answered in this searing and beautiful monologue. The answers are hard won and certainly not what everyone wants to hear, but the truth has weight in this argument. Terrific piece!

Marchant simultaneously captures mid-pandemic online corporate communication with remote workers and shines a spotlight on the hypcrisy of higher-ups to demand their employees unnecessarily return to office environs. The faux concern is as apalling now as it was then. A terrific Zoom piece that will embarrass upper management!

Sublimely unsettling. There’s a jocularity that belies but never obscures the feeling that things are much graver than they seem in this customer service dystopia. Swenson uses absurdist rhythms and repetitions to amplify the unease and Jenny’s trepidation. As determined as she is apprehensive, she soldiers on sweeping us into an uncertain future.

Deeply satisfying as a stand-alone piece because the questions we’re left with are thought provoking and more than a little terrifying. Fortunately, this is the first installment of a cycle. But even if it weren’t, it leaves your mind and soul shaken.

Swenson is creating a complex puzzle of intimacy, memory, and accountability, raising troubling questions within an overarching story that both compels and consumes the psyche.

While it’s troubling as a stand-alone, on the heels of PRESS THE RED BUTTON, questions about what’s happening loom even larger. What’s great is Tammy know’s something’s off and she’s actively responding. Not just by going to a therapist to confront her nightmares but calling her thearpist’s idiosyncrasies. We’re left with an opacity of trust: who’s playing who, who’s been played?

I can’t wait!

There’s a moment when I was reading this when I slid back in my seat and just says, “F—ck…!” Swenson has a gift for unexpected turning points and revelations of perception. Here, he cranks those to 11, and more than once, turning his sublimely creepy dystopia into a pristine fluorescent hellscape.

WORKPLACE STRESSORS is a masterpiece of escalating tension and pace. Suddenly, it shifts from existential unease to a pedal-to-the-floor detective story a la DARK CITY or (more obviously) SEVERANCE. Comparisons be damned, this is Swenson’s universe and there’s no escape for any of us!

More turns than a Grand Prix racetrack! Swenson has taken us from corporate hellscape to waking nightmare. My brain did a happy dance when Tammy reveals how close her experience is to the audience’s. It’s a terrific bit of meta-theatricality, completely organic while magnifying the horror exponentially.

We feel claustrophobically trapped even as we get a glimpse into the larger plan.

I’m curious to see how this piece functions as a stand-alone. SO MUCH HAPPEN in it’s brief running time, I’d love to see what an audience makes of it tabula rasa.

Taut and unsettling from the get-go. There’s an intrusion happening, even though the door is closed. All we know is something is wrong, a persistent danger is both present and looming, and if Lilia opens that door the danger will escalate. But is that a bad thing? SUGAR had me in the edge of my seat right up to the end. Even now I’m wondering if Lilia is okay. Urgent and necessary writing.