“’Square Go’ is an unassumingly brilliant look at the impossible expectations we place on boys, and the role model gap that is being filled by all sorts of negative forces...Hertog creates a universe of adolescent anxiety on a stage approximately 10'x10'...It's the little details that make Hertog's production memorable...In just over an hour, ‘Square Go’ wrestles with one of the most urgent problems of today, and leaves us all in a puddle of sweat thinking about the solutions.”
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"Nothing much happens...Even so, this catalogue of early adolescent woes effectively doubles as a perceptive study of youths struggling to learn how to become men. The script is loaded with details that are as precise as they are comic...'Square Go' is performed by a pair of thirtyish actors who bounce around the stage like human jumping jacks, plausibly and without caricature transforming themselves into boys ready to explode from anxiety and pent-up energy."
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“Hurley and McNair's funny and perceptive play...If you've ever been the parent or the teacher of young teens, or if you can remember your own sojourn through that time of life, you will recognize that the writing and the performances and the directing perfectly capture in Max and Stevie the crazy social and emotional upheaval characteristic of that typically hellish phase of growing up...It's generally very funny stuff, though, of course, the boys take it all very seriously.”
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"Scottish playwrights Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair explore the murky pre-adult domain with candor and humor in Square Go, an appealing two-hander...featuring two fully adult actors, Daniel Portman and Gavin Jon Wright, portraying-respectively-Max and Stevie, a pair of 13-year-old besties who seem to transform, regularly, into each other's biggest enemy. There are hilarious moments in the play, but Hurley and McNair don't treat the characters in a condescending way."
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"An entertaining hour-long play that sneaks up on you with its perceptive observations about male adolescence. And to top it off, there are Scottish accents...These details add up to a picture of the pressure to be men that adolescent boys feel, and how dangerous it can be when they don't have the right role models...All of this is accomplished without 'Square Go' ever feeling like a message play."
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"As the minutes tick down the hour, the inner conflicts within Max and the aggression Stevie holds against him explodes in a vibrance of action...This lightning-fast, audience interactive, hour-long show thrills and delights. It also surprises...Hertog’s direction of Portman and Wright, whose physicality and passion are stunning, remains the linchpin of the production."
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"A fast-paced sprint from the opening line to the finish with the only time to reflect being after you’ve left the theatre...’Square Go’ is a great portrayal of what boys everywhere go through in trying to understand what it means to be a man, giving insight to the mixed messages and unwritten law of peers that every boy has to interpret for themselves. It doesn’t go beyond that though...A minor insignificant quibble for a fringe show, but not for a run at an established theater.”
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"The hilarious but deeply moving exploration of teenage male posturing and ego shattering confrontation has far more wiseness hidden underneath that creative mask than anything we could have imagined. It pulses with inventiveness and an intimate connection...The recycled imagery of masculinity and manliness are paraded and pummeled forward with perfection by all, demanding the duel to be seen as the most important challenge to a young man’s ego and existence."
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