MARK JACKSON

“Burns with aesthetic and political urgency… Each scene, even individual lines take on the quality of brief and vivid moments of actual life. Wrested from having to follow a narrative, our attention heightens… It’s a goofy and glorious abstraction of the idea of a party, and yet all of it comes from The Three Sisters, in its values, beliefs, and logic, and in that way couldn’t be closer to what Chekhov intended. The DEBBIE party is not an idea, but a refraction of one of the most powerful and lasting theatrical aesthetics of the last hundred years — improvisation as a way of life.”

FREEAUDIENCE.ORG

“Fragmented and mysterious and utterly riveting, it’s a lovely and loving homage to the Chekhov classic. It’s bittersweet, as befits the source material, but also playful and funny and as welcoming as it is sometimes mysterious.”

THE MERCURY NEWS

“Kill the Debbie Downers! is creatively set and staged; the acting is first-rate; the music, which includes singing accompanied by an accordion, piano, banjo, and even a trombone at one point, is novel and entertaining.”

BERKELEYSIDE

“Squeezes juicy berries of absurdity from Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters into a heady liqueur of song, dance, play, and an accordion! … Reminds us to seize the moment and grab as much fun as you can before we die. It’s as simple as that, and I bet Chekhov would have loved it.”

THEATERANDSUCH.COM

“KILL THE DEBBIE DOWNERS’ relationship to narrative and philosophy is similar to that of a Cirque du Soleil production. The piece yields plenty of pleasure if taken on a sensory level rather than a sensible one. Mikiko Uesugi's translucent-paneled set, Ray Oppenheimer's shifting veils of color-saturated light, Alice Ruiz' and Devon Labelle's stylized period costumes and props, and Sara Witsch's collage-like sound design are inviting from the moment you enter the theater, and enveloping once the action gets underway. That's action, not plot. Roll with it.”

BAY AREA REPORTER

“The sisters’ paralyzing dissatisfaction with their lives and inabilities to make decisions to better those lives are played out by the fine cast assembled.  There is also fine usage by the creators/directors of pauses that speak volumes about the sisters’ boredom with life and their perpetual state of stasis.  There are sequences of repeated lines delivered in different manners that illustrate the probable ways that memories play out again and again of better days when the sisters lived in Moscow…  And there is an opening sequence of meeting individually the six characters of KILL THE DEBBIE DOWNERS that for me was the highlight of the evening, with each actor capturing in various ways the essence of that particular Chekhovian personality.”

THEATRE EDDYS

“A fertile playground for the six-person cast to showcase virtuoso abilities… A too-rare opportunity to appreciate just how much directors and actors shape a show, how a good script is ultimately a prompt, a jumping-off point to infinite possibilities of interpretation… Jackson and Wilmurt let their cast be delirious, demented, galumphing their way through Irina’s birthday party in a manner that paints Chekhov’s characters as tingling, heaving bundles of impulses. They’re just like us, not the starched linens and ramrod posture of some hermetically sealed drawing room… It pays Chekhov’s characters the kind of honor that says, ‘I want to see who you really are.’ It’s a valentine.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“A trip down memory lane, surprising questions with humorous, poignant or painful answers and an intriguing elixir of revolution and hope. Count on off-the-charts physicality from Jackson's touch and musical textures revealing Wilmurt's signature hand: crisp, bold, harmonic statements that extend and mirror spoken words. It's human nature with all its warts and wonder onstage, and very much alive.”

EAST BAY EXPRESS

“Illustrates how vulnerable we all are… Co-directors Mark Jackson and Beth Wilmurt explore past Czarist oppression and future liberation in timely, poignant waves. They reach out to us with visceral movement, powerful songs, and images of pain… Kill the Debbie Downers! proves that all theatre is political and made for the present… Expertly combines exciting song, dance, and live music. In the madness of the party, we comprehend that our present political/social system, too, occupies but a moment. How long will we go on in this fantasy?”

THEATRIUS.COM

“A sort of thematic diving board that invites the audience into much loftier discussions… Not only does whittling the cast down to six make for a more in-depth character study, but it specifically lets the women in the play dominate the stage while the two men seem to wander in orbit around them. ‘Orbiting’ is an apt word here, as it soon becomes apparent that movement and physical space are some of the most important modes of expression in the play… Each member of the cast has a well of talents to show off, from operatic singing to beat poetry to the variety of instruments that were passed around during the production. This is ultimately one of the unique strengths of devised theater. It allows actors to show their skills in unconventional ways and to interact with an audience as boldly as they dare. And with a cast as talented as this one, that’s an experience worth seeing.”

THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN

“The sheer vibrancy of this production by the Shotgun Players (together with its aggressive musical score) gets each character’s blood pumping in ways that demand an audience’s attention. Using video and music as tools to sweep away the usual stuffiness found in Three Sisters and transform it into a challenging (and entertaining) evening of dance/movement theatre is a formidable achievement.”

MEDIUM.COM

“Co-Directors Mark Jackson and Beth Wilmurt retain the framework of Chekhov’s original text but condense the action and eliminate all but six characters, yielding a taut story line… Aided by top-notch staging elements, the result provokes and entertains… Amplifying the thematic elements of the play and giving it a modern sensibility and relevance to the current political environment, lengthy video projections augment the live action and gain the audience’s undivided attention with their currency and gravity. They also suggest the prospective collapse of society if ignorance and apathy are allowed to reign… The play changes tone, direction, time, and place frequently, resulting in a sense of mental chaos. But for those who can appreciate leaving a performance with more questions than answers, this is a fulfilling experience.”

FOR ALL EVENTS

“New and strange and entrancing… I really don’t know how to describe this event. But I know enough to give it my highest recommendation!”

THEATRESTORM.COM