Recommended by Robin Rice

The most devastating monologue can be one that doesn't mess around with flowery descriptions or peripheral sentiments. Baker's speaker tells us what happened directly, and it pierces your heart. Things we know about Covid, about those who deny it, and about those who deny gay people equal rights - all of this and more is here, but brought home in such a personal way it might even change some minds.

As the world experiences PTSD from its struggle with Covid, Arthur Jolly puts a magnifying glass to four people who experienced a singular, mutual trauma as children - and how it affected each of them. Which makes "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" ever so current - and ever so funny!

Ten pages that are packed with humanity, honest feelings, reversals and revelations. Not a forced moment. Not once does the playwright interrupt and lecture us or tell us what we should feel. I saw this play in a Zoom presentation and it worked beautifully, start to finish.

Levine builds up the tension, then laughs at us - er, laughs at his characters. I have a feeling there's going to be more in store for this high-strung couple though...

Funny how an over-the-top couple with only their mutual desires registering on their self-centered brains can be loveable at the same time. I love this "paradise" where anything can happen. (It would make a great audio play.)

Thank you for taking me to another place. Another place entirely. A place filled with feral Golden Retrievers, rhododendrons with a human past, grand battles with mystical creatures in the back yard... Rife with details like: "And all because a fallen angel had a one-night tryst in the forest with a
chimeric pony-starfish-demon under the wrong moon, resulting in an offspring they
found unlovable... " I'll never again look at a garden gnome without lascivious thoughts. Deliciousness on a whole new level!

We think we're so much smarter than our ancestors with our high-tech onslaught of instant information. This look at 21st Century political debates turns the camera sharply back around and focuses on us. Funny, but oh so true!

Nothing like turning a spotlight on an icon so that unexpected warts, pimples, and unholy urges jump out and have you rolling on the floor! A refreshing drink in the desert of strained political correctness we are tip-toeing through these days.

In a nutshell (or one minute) this is why I love Scott Sickles' plays. Wrap together horror, ridiculousness, discovery, gentleness, weirdness, and love in one big, satisfying ball and this is it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Bingo. Bazinga. Nailed it. I'm left thinking beyond the immediate situation- a sure sign that a play works.