"A moving, intimate and superbly acted drama about women’s lives in a British prison...The production is aptly spare and simple...The dialogue is crisp, minimal and overlapping...Among its other virtues, 'Key Change' resists sentimentality, although there are some touching passages."
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"There are many striking moments; you could say that 'Key Change' is constructed of nothing but...'Key Change' also powerfully delineates the grim facts of life behind bars...In the end, however, 'Key Change' remains a piece that, for all its harrowingly rendered observations, exists mostly as a kind of tract, an argument designed to enlighten others. It certainly performs that task, even as one leaves the theatre wishing one had seen a real play."
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"A moving and highly theatrical kaleidoscopic factual drama that makes a great impact in one hour. Playwright Catrina McHugh has crafted a richly detailed confessional examination of four women’s lives that are told with fierce candor and biting humor...The pace is fast and vibrantly conveys the emotions of the characters’ situations...With its strong writing, masterful presentation and intense performances, 'Key Change' is an excellent work of social consciousness theater."
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"These powerful performers understand the value of detailed, fearless acting...If it's the carefully woven fabric of voices and stories that makes this a punch-strong show or if it is the fact that it is delivered carefully through equally powerful moments of comedy, completely earned lyricism and precise timing—applause here again to Lindow—that makes 'Key Change' a much needed piece of theatre, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that this exists...A must-see play."
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"All of the performances are rough, bloody and believable...Within the cast, amid poetic form, physical theater, considerable comedy and the rasp of straight talking, real tears are shed. A statement of 'It's my last time' by a repeat offender is as funny as it is tragic. The notion of a happy ending sends itself up, but crucially, it is not without hope. Throughout, 'Key Change' is a well-crafted, sensitively directed and impressively performed piece of theater."
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"Emotionally powerful and often deeply moving, the piece perhaps succeeds better at its educational, and undoubtedly more important, task. The urgency of these women’s stories, and the common threads that underlie the paths they took to prison shine through...In front of a New York audience, some of the stories don’t quite pack the punch of recognition they might in the UK; the unfamiliar slang, not to mention the fact that all the inmates are white, adds a definite distance. "
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"It felt like an hour-long series of theater games and exercises...Some of them work fine, taken individually...But all the noodling around, especially a pile-on of staccato group dialogue and quick little scenes undermines our ability to discern the individuality of the main characters. The result overall is a feeling that the professional theater makers devised this play, and the women in prison were not given control over their own stories."
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"There’s no single story or character to latch onto...and, despite its brevity, ‘Key Change’ finds it hard to sustain the kind of interest in what comes next that might have prevented the boredom that ultimately ensues...‘Key Change’ is an example of talented artists engaged in the theatre of good intentions, confronting an important social issue and hitting lots of worthy buttons but lacking the dramatic structure necessary to free it from its self-imposed confinement."
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