Sincerity Forever

The reviews are in.

“While Mac Wellman may not be the most accessible playwright, he’s easily one of the funniest, and timeliest, and Wendy Knox’s Frank Theatre staging of his latest play is his most linear yet-that is, it makes sense. Strong performances by Dona Werner, Luverne Seifert, and others make it even more fun, but best of all is Kim Hines’s towering portrayal of a Jesus Christ who doesn’t care who people sleep with or how many four letter words they use to punctuate their sentences; she only cares that they’re honest and don’t put words in her mouth. It’s an angular break from the sponginess of holiday entertainment.”

City Pages

“In SINCERITY FOREVER his gleefully devilish new satire, playwright Mac Wellman engages in the literary equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull. Make that two bulls: The play, written during the political firestorm that engulfed the National Endowment for the Arts earlier this year, is dedicated to the NEA’s two most visible opponents, Sen. Jesse Helms and Donald Wildmon, leader of the ultraconservative American Family Associates. SINCERITY, now receiving its first area staging-an excellent one-by Frank Theatre, is calculated to offend almost everyone. It even offended the endowment, which asked Wellman to stop listing the NEA as having helped make Sincerity possible. Although SINCERITY is obviously not for everyone, it’s an exceptionally vigorous, funny play, and it is well served by Knox’s poised staging.”

Roy M. Close, St. Paul Pioneer Press

“You see it all over the world: in Azerbaijan, in the Gaza Strip, in Kashmir. If you look closely, you will probably find it on the street where you live. It’s bigotry; the refusal of one group to recognize the humanity of another and instead concentrate on differences, both real and imagined. It’s bigotry that is at the heart of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s KATZELMACHER, getting a stark, no nonsense staging by Frank Theatre. KATZELMACHER is a dramatically limited play. It is more cautionary parable than credible drama. Yet, for all of its dramatic limitations, it is a powerful, committed play that is certainly as relevant now as when it was written. Knox gives it a slowly paced reading that stresses the nastiness of the characters and their grimy corner of the world. She is careful to fully expose the face of bigotry and allows us to see its mechanics and characteristics in full flower.”

–Peter Vaughan, Star Tribune