Reviews
"A bewitching and pitch-black fairy tale that’s as riveting as it is cheerfully macabre"
—Sam Hurwitt | The Mercury News
"A production of such stunning grace and pleasure"
—John Wilkins | KQED (The Best Bay Area Theater of 2017)
"Sublime sensory power"
—Lily Janiak | San Francisco Chronicle
"Sheer extravagance and theatricality"
—Emily S. Mendel | Berkeleyside
"Exciting, provocative, and entertaining"
—Victor Cordell | ForAllEvents
"An off-beat, glorious marvel... the superb cast challenges our human willingness to sacrifice goodness to satisfy desire"
—Kim Waldron | THEATRIUS
"The Shotgun Players have got the show for you."
—Nicole Gluckstern | East Bay Express
"Hilarious and diabolical"
—Eddie Reynolds | Theatre Eddy's
"There's a great deal of fun to be had in this shady fairy tale"
—Chad Jones | Theatremania
"A heightened state of mind"
—Jeffrey Edalatpour | SFWEEKLY
"Jackson says he asked the actors to not tell him if they were playing the character as a he, a she or a they. He wanted to honor Wilson’s principles, who said he never told an actor or an audience what to feel."
—Emily Wilson | Broke-Ass Stuart
From the Seats
"Sublime acting and music"
—Austin
"A new look at temptation, wrong choices and their repercussions"
—Tatyana
"Excellent... heartfelt... powerful"
—Michael
"Magic"
—Rain
Tom Waits: interviewed by Pamela Feinsilber
(San Francisco Magazine) August/September 2004.
PF: You've said that you were trying to write music "that could dream its way into the forest of Wilson's images."
TW: He makes these dreamscapes up onstage, and you sit out there in the dark and you start hearing what could possibly be the accompaniment to what you are seeing. But to do that, you have to kind of fall into this liquid dream that he's making for you. I heard a saw [as musical instrument] and all this stuff--'cause you figure the forest, you know.
PF: And in terms of the lyrics, you said on the liner notes that Burroughs's language "became a river of words for me to draw from." Yet some of the lines sound so much like you. Can you explain to me how you fished in that river and pulled out some of your lyrics?
TW: Um [thinks]..."Beware of"--what is it? [Sings.] "There is a light in the forest...Beware of the telescopic meats." [Speaks it slowly, to emphasize.] Telescopic meats. "He'll find his way back to the forest"--wella, huh huh huh..."and the briar is strangling the rose back down." [Talks.] "His back shall be my slender new branch. It will bend, it will sway in the breeze."
