War With the
Newts
October 27 - November 17, 2007 at the Red
Eye Theater,
Minneapolis, MN
presented by Sandbox
Theatre
Review by Quinton Skinner
(City Pages):
"...hauntingly original... This War
bristles with adventure and invention."
Full
Review
Best of the Year Lists by
John Townsend (Lavender Magazine):
#8 on list of Top Ten Best Productions, 2007
Article
Review by Lightsey Darst
(MNArtists.org):
"The stage gleams with masculine energy: stomping, striking,
singing, shouting, the actors revel in themselves, in their power...
'Or the White Whale' is stunning. Productions and performances like
this don’t come along every day."
Full
Review
Review by Matthew
Everett (In My Humble Opinion):
"While I haven’t seen any other stage adaptations of
“Moby Dick,” I can’t imagine they would
be any more engrossing, entertaining, or overwhelming than Civic
Stage’s 'Or The White Whale.'"
Full
Review
Review by Claude Peck
(Minneapolis Star Tribune):
"Cream of the Crop! Best of the Fringe!"
Full
review no longer available online
Review by Dominic
Papatola (St. Paul Pioneer Press):
"This water-bound adventure often manages to be thought
provoking. And the quintet of promising young performers? If nothing
else, they get an "A" for sheer moxie."
Full
review no longer available online
Review by Rod Smith
(CityPages):
"Derek Miller's splashy afterlife drama would represent a
full-immersion Fringe baptism even if it weren't staged on an
inflatable raft in the downtown YWCA's pool. The five-person troupe's
compelling ensemble work is all the more impressive for the
production's close quarters and sopping period costumes. ...a
frigate in a week full of dinghies.
Full
Review
Review by Matthew Everett
(In My Humble Opinion):
"From its solid story to its meaty characters, from the
setting's degree of difficulty to the cast's mesmerizing performances,
I really can't recommend this show highly enough"
Full
Review
Review by Kate Hoff (Full
Frontal Fringe):
"This is a fantastic show; I thought the writing and acting
easily carried it beyond the obvious oddity draw."
Full
Review
Audience Reviews
from the Minneapolis Fringe Festival website:
"This show, novel in its presentation, is at times funny,
mysterious, dramatic, surreal, and thought-provoking. It asks you to
step outside of the characters and the plot to question something more
universal."
"Perfectly written, perfectly acted, perfectly staged."
"Great performances all around, and a good examination of the particulars of tragedy."
"I've seen fringe plays that are perhaps more fun, but no other show I've seen is as mesmerizing, leaving you with amazing images and ideas to ponder. The acting is of superb quality, the script excellent, and the production one you'll never forget."
"This may be the best thing I've seen at the Fringe."
"Well-trained actors
carry simple lines with the aplomb to make a fascinating play amusing.
The well-paced dialogue careens around the confines of the characters'
violently-imploded pesonalities. In the end, all find life so chaotic
they begin to revel in their own hallucinatory reality.
More
audience reviews
Best of the Year Lists by
John Townsend (Lavender Magazine):
#4 on list of Top Ten Best Productions, 2006
Article
Review by John Townsend
(Minneapolis Star Tribune):
"The cast balances sharp urbane wit with perfectly placed
moments of searing emotion, like a symphony of light and dark..."
Full
Review
Review by Matthew Everett
(In My Humble Opinion):
"I’m a broken record where Derek Miller is
concerned. He does great work no matter what kind of script you through
at him - ancient classics, modern surrealism, or this very well-made
play from almost forty years ago."
Full
Review
Review by Ed Huyk
(Talkin' Broadway):
"The ensemble's acting is solid, with each performer taking
whatever time they have to bring some nuance to their characters and to
stretch them beyond the archetype they represent. "
Full
Review
Review by Quinton Skinner
(City Pages):
"This show, while not capturing every facet of Crowley's
complicated and layered verbiage, nails the bitter heart beneath it.
Full
Review
Review by Matthew Everett:
"Derek Miller, so good as the lead in a recent Cromulent
Shakespeare Company production of Aristophanes' "The Birds," is once
again a great choice to head up the ensemble of a completely different
kind of comedy. His interactions with others, in an attempt to cling to
normalcy as things get very weird all around him, provide the show with
a firm anchor in this alternate reality."
Full
Review
Review by Quinton Skinner
(City Pages):
"Anyone who has marked time in the environs of the
contemporary office is well familiar with ennui, dread, and
paranoia--and that's all before coffee break... Koogoomanooki, staged
by Sandbox Theatre, is a taut, lighthearted, and unconventional comedy
that rather gently spoofs the alienation of our workplace kennels while
providing a nicely silly surreal tone... "
Full
Review
Review by
Matthew Everett (In My Humble Opinion):
"Special mention must be made of the almost
superhuman performance of Derek Miller as Pisthetairos, the primary
architect of the humans' plan to take over the skies. Miller is on
stage for literally all but a couple of minutes of its nearly two hour
running time without a break. He has pages upon pages of dialogue and,
like the rest of the cast, sails through it at a breakneck pace, still
without losing the audience in his dust. It's a deeply funny and
engagingly clever performance which helps hold the show together.
Everyone in the cast gets their moment to shine, and they do, in a host
of supporting roles, but Miller leads the pack."
Full
Review
Review from the St. Paul
Pioneer Press:
"The performances are solid... the blurring and weaving of
props, sounds and dialogue among the three parallel vignettes is
inventive and imaginative, creating a swirl of energy and suspense that
carries the characters to their inevitable merge..."
Full
review no longer available online
Audience Reviews
from the Minneapolis Fringe Festival website:
"The writing is sharp and intelligent, the staging is
innovative, the soundtrack is curious and the acting by Erin Appel,
Eric Sharp, Mark Sweeney, Derek Miller and Alia Mortensen is spot-on."
"The writing was clever, quirky, insightful, and funny. The acting was lovely with each character shining through as sympathetic and interesting. An intricate dance shared by three strangers, the staging was the perfect complement to the storyline"
"This was a fabulous performance all around! The script was tight AND engaging AND intriguing..."
"This play used fluidity of motion (as well as sections of strong, fluid of storytelling) to weave a fascinating yarn. It certainly is a comedy, drama, thriller, a genre bending story of mind-exciting proportions."
"The staging for this show is incredible. It conveyed so much immediacy
& was so visually interesting I couldn't imagine taking my eyes
off the stage. The actors contained such wonderful energy &
purpose in their bodies. There was not a wasted movement. "
2005
Audience Reviews no longer available online
Pictures
of Common Frequency
photos by Scott Pakudaitis
Review from Matt diCintio
(City Pages):
"Joseph Papke and Derek Miller give notable performances as
fellow agitators, forming full characters the playwright hasn't
written."
Full
Reviews
Review from Liz Weir
(Talkin' Broadway):
"Derek Miller gives us a brief glimpse of a young J. Edgar
Hoover as he climbs the rungs of the FBI."
Full
Reviews