“After all of the jokes and the bloodshed and a brief waltz between the deceased, the play turns into a less interesting thought experiment in its second act...By then ‘Fall River’ has not only lost its steam, but also its appeal, and its last bit of sense.”
Read more

“Despite all the hacking and blood and talk of murder, it’s the outrageous al dente final scene that leaves the most lasting impression. Exiting the theater, everyone seemed to be talking about going out for spaghetti.”
Read more

Absurdist to an increasingly ho-hum degree, Szadkowski and Knox let their imaginations run amok with silly speculations about pre-double-homicide life in the Borden household that are punctuated by head-scratchingly anachronistic jokes involving Tinder, Cabbage Patch Kids, John Belushi, and whatever other free associative references apparently sprung to mind during their no-doubt personally enjoyable writing sessions together. The problem is that Szadkowski and Knox are incapable of bridging the gap between their evident fun and our actual entertainment, an obnoxious shortfall made cringe-worthy by the fact that they both star in "Fall River Fishing."
Read more

"Witty dialog and stinging performances are the order of the day, aided by the edgy and taut direction of the company’s artistic director, Eric Tucker."
Read more

“There are threads weaving the sections together...The fractured and dysfunctional bonds of family. Murder. But the more the piece tries to tap into emotions beneath its polish, the less it succeeds.”
Read more

Lizzie Borden, a favorite true-crime subject since long before the genre had that name, is the inspiration behind Fall River Fishing, a new play directed by Eric Tucker and written by two of its cast members, Deb Knox and Zuzanna Szadkowski. Their double duty as playwrights and performers doesn’t fully convey just how much Knox and Szadkowski, along with their three castmates (Susannah Millonzi, Jamie Smithson and Tony Torn), put into the show. It succeeds because of these five deeply invested performances,
Read more