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REVIEW QUOTES FROM BEXLEY,OH! WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY PRUDENCE WRIGHT HOLMES AT NY THEATRE WORKSHOP 2/19-3/30/03. DIRECTED BY LISA PETERSON NY Times 3/29/03: …details are specific and odd
From Associated Press: …you're in the hands of a master storyteller… In tone and quality, they're reminiscent of the work of Garrison Keillor And although it's been explored a thousand times before, the buttoned-up, …her understated performance is the play's secret weapon. …she is clearly a performer to watch…
From The NY Post: A clever narrator makes her childhood memories a grotesquely funny portrait
From Variety: …the droll twist of her thin smile and the wicked twinkle in her eye promise comedy tonight.
From NY Theatre.com: There is a lot to like in Prudence Wright Holmes’s one-woman show, Bexley, OH! The writing is crisp and enjoyable. The beauty of the piece is that it’s completely free of pathos. It’s entertaining…Holmes’ performance is as smooth and affectless as the plains of the state from which she hails. She is a likable and trustworthy narrator.
From Broadway.com: Holmes does not captivate her listeners with grand theatrics, but patiently engages them with a carefully woven narrative, gently told and brimming with telling details. By the end of the night, the "OH" in the title no longer seems an expression of surprise, but of belated comprehension.
Holmes has a keen eye for telling detail…and has created an engaging..successful..curious and affecting …look at the ties that don’t necessarily have to bind.
In Bexley, OH(!), directed by Lisa Peterson, this natural eccentric brings to life two stories from her childhood. Buried under the wacky humor of Holmes's story is a troubling conflict between arch-conservative father and countercultural daughter. At one point, the tension erupts into a violent food-fight. However, Holmes's writing skips so merrily along that, after the fight, when a psychiatrist suggests that the teenage Prudence should be in foster care, a shocking pathos suddenly rises to the surface.
From Time Out: …Holmes is an affable storyteller with a low-key delivery… In Bexley’s two monologues, Holmes paints her father and mother as die-hard supporters of the status quo. Repugnant as these people are, Holmes manages, almost grudgingly, to add complexity to their portraits. Holmes subtly but effectively illustrates a strain of doubt and self-loathing in her father.
Reviews of other Shows
Dirty Work at the Crossroads-at the Showboat Theatre “One to watch for is Prudence Holmes who brings the house down with her song about the girl sold artificial flowers”
Personal Appearance at the Carousel Dinner Theatre “Some of the biggest explosions of applause go to Prudence Wright Holmes as the star-struck neighbor”
The Portable Pioneer and Prairie Show at the First Chicago Center “Holmes is a musical comedy natural, and she possesses the added advantage of a unique stage personality. She’s a comic soprano, which is to say she makes a lot of wonderful noises, many of them musical, of the kind only a flexible, funny singer can even attempt. She also moves like a marionette on gummy strings, no small achievement.”
Dona Rosita at The West Side Arts Theatre “Prudence Wright Holmes is outstanding”
From the NY Daily News: Polly at the Chelsea Theatre at BAM “A winning performance by Prudence Wright Holmes as the idiotic maid.”
From the NY Daily News: Happy End Martin Beck Theatre, Broadway “Prudence Wright Holmes as the Salvation Army Sister was very good.”
From the Columbus Dispatch: The Drunkard at the Springfield Dinner Theatre “Prudence Wright Holmes does a great job in three roles. Her transition from a meek mother to a bawdy bargirl is the mark of a good actress and she is excruciatingly funny as the ribald high roller who bats her eyelashes, swivels her hips and gives the audience the come-on.”
Eccentricities of a Nightingale at the Westchester Regional Theatre “There’s a very fine bit by Prudence Wright Holmes as Rosemary, the pathetic outcast in the literary circle.”
From The Richmond News Leader: A Member of the Wedding at the Virginia Museum Theatre “Frankie is an exposed nerve of girlhood. Ms. Holes achieved a transcendent complexity that was beautiful.”
From The Greenwich News: The Crucible at WPI Theatre “Prudence Wright Holmes as Elizabeth Proctor is made of sturdy stuff. Small and fragile though she may be, her honesty and sincerity draw deep sympathy for her plight. Ms. Holmes performance is incandescent.”
Poor Pitiful Pittsburgh at Ben Gross Supper Club “You have to see Ms. Holmes to believe her. All of 87 pounds soaking wet, she brings down the house with several renditions.”
From the Lancaster News: WMKS Where Music Kills Sorrow at the Fulton Opera House “Prudence Wright Holmes as the tough but nurturing Alma Carroll is nothing short of captivating. She makes the audience roar with delight at her high-pitched singing and brings them to tears when she risks her life for those she cares about the most.”
From the Nashua News: WMKS Where Music Kills Sorrow at The American Stage Festival “Prudence Wright Holmes stands out as Alma. Ms. Holmes looks as if she were living in the 1930s. She takes the stage with that Depression-era beaten-down-but-by-God-not-out that reminds me of the women in Walker Evan’s WPA photographs. She maintains the illusion through a superb two-and-a-half hours of acting.”
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