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Ricardo Soltero-Brown

Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

  • Curiosity by Brian James Polak
    28 Nov. 2017
    “ I don't have the word count to quote Samuel Beckett on what theatre should be, but - aside from audience - this's what I understood him to mean. I've been concerned with plot, however, dialogue is my true love, and both are married here. Still, when I come across this kind of poetry, this rhythm, I don't really give a hoot about anything except the honesty of the actors. Brian James Polak has taken irony, bitterness, despair, desperation, and wound them tightly into a story about Time and Space, funny enough, those two things we forget about in our continuum. ”
  • WORLD CLASSIC by Nelson Diaz-Marcano
    26 Nov. 2017
    “ I won't write who's who in my family; I'll write about the life Diaz-Marcano has delineated for the stage. His patience and empathy for these kin, their passions, sentiments, is honorable and expemplary of the most notable naturalists in recent Drama; think Hellman, Cruz, Letts, Shepard. It's best when he's just letting them be. It's a respect and responsibility not often seen in Latinx theatre. I hope Elaine Romero gives him a look. Baseball broke my heart as a kid, but not like this play does as an adult. I, like many Puerto Ricans, am not sure what I am. ”
  • FREAKIN' AWESOME STEP-DAD: A MONOLOGUE by Asher Wyndham
    25 Nov. 2017
    “ Wyndham gives us another gem, one among his best. This is the kind of character who makes you smirk hard and leaves you jazzed, who says what is wished to be said, not what should be or would be. It really never gets any more fun than that, not for an audience, an actor, director, you name it. I wonder what's in this man's coffee; this and several other questions will laugh you up during any angle or period of analysis. Some other questions will probably give you significant pause, maybe even fear. That's what makes Wyndham's work particularly remarkable. ”
  • Homecoming by Sheila Cowley
    25 Nov. 2017
    “ Cowley always feels like Shepard to me; characters with lives almost too full for their own good, heavied by hard-earned philosophical wisdoms, carrying smarts you'll never know about, passionate apathies, and apathetic passions. All they give a damn about is living their life with a decent modicum of respect. It's rather, truly altogether, honorable, but also separate and correctly independent from the man-made institutions and societal strongholds that have been developed over time. Which is both funny and tragic, because her characters are always forced to reckon with, and function in, these human constructs of what is and isn't acceptable. ”
  • Counting in Sha'ab by Emma Goldman-Sherman
    24 Nov. 2017
    “ Emma Goldman-Sherman is a living, breathing bulldozer among dramatists, focused, hard-nosed, hard-edged, she continues proving the effectiveness of Pinter's philosophy on politically-charged fever writing. This is heart-shattering work. Sometimes you have to punch structure in the face and see what it bleeds. This is a breathless something, gasping, tight-chested. Goldman-Sherman gives it air, taste, sound, touch, sight, more. Caryl Churchill might tip her hat. As for me, I shed a tear, learned a lesson, and maybe might take a page. What was the lesson? First, always ask, "What to notice in chaos, anarchy?" Second, always answer, "People." ”
  • M-I-S-S by Brianna Barrett
    21 Nov. 2017
    “ You only have so much time to profess your love for someone. Make it count. Barrett has a tough, brutal, pointed, and poignant play here about the struggles so many of us will never know. These characters deserve more than a glance. It's all they, or anyone, longs for. That's the beauty, purpose, and significance of this piece. ”
  • Spin The Bottle by Matthew Weaver
    20 Nov. 2017
    “ Children forget that they will grow old, as they get older they tend to believe every action will be the last of their childhood; the proof is adults still do childish things. This is no doubt one of my favorite plays by Matthew Weaver, not just for its novelty and cleverness, which it owns, in spades, but also because none of its characters is ready to acknowledge the end; each of them has deeply rooted affairs which, if only to them, are far unfinished. However, they carry that weight of long, unfolding efforts. Impressively, dramatically, correctly, they all own up. ”
  • QUINN: A MONOLOGUE FOR A GENDERQUEER ACTOR by Asher Wyndham
    18 Nov. 2017
    “ Asher Wyndham is quite likely the boldest and bravest writer I know, committed to a complex, complicated, not quite yet antiquated form, he over and over again proves its relevance and effect. People remember Aristotle's 'Poetics' but they forget his 'Rhetoric', and that is the importance of Wyndham. 'Quinn' should have actors fighting the impulse to cry, this character is stronger than weeping, but not above it, just like the best of humanity. Aristotle, and Sophocles, really, might be proud of this tragic figure doing all that can be done in the face of an authority for a family member. ”
  • An Acorn by Caridad Svich
    17 Nov. 2017
    “ Caridad Svich again proves herself as one of American theatre's premier artists; her versatility is astounding, and her talent to serve as a conduit for the most common of voices in this country is maybe more clearly on display here than ever in 'An Acorn', one of her rawest pieces. It also has some of her best lines. Her scripts are poetry, they are literature separate from their productions which writers need to take a look at for their economy and visceral sensitivities, their implications, their guidance for actors and directors alike. This is the beauty I've needed all year. ”
  • Velociraptors in the Garden by Matthew Weaver
    9 Nov. 2017
    “ With all the mischief and menace of Albee, this play finds Weaver pitting the high-class mentality against a number of morally - and ultimately physically - challenging efforts and obstacles towards its almost-feeling players, and quite briskly at that. This oddly charming bit of a fever dream could practically top off or easily round out any one-act festival unafraid of both highbrow and lowbrow humor; the dark laughs are the best parts. ”

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