“A taut, through-composed musical built on the Brechtian model, The Lieutenant is a blunt force instrument wielded with considerable skill in Bill Castellino's production… The lyrics are sometimes clumsier than one would like, with many false rhymes. And I rather doubt that, due to changing attitudes, a full production of this piece would reach a wide audience today…Nevertheless, The Lieutenant is a work of real quality that dares to wonder how a perfectly average man can be made to commit atrocities without a second's thought.”
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“...much of ‘The Lieutenant’ emerges as reportage. Events come and go, but they don't build. Some of this surely has to do with the lyrics, which rhyme inexactly when they even bother to try. But beyond that, in trying to cram the whole sorry story into 75 minutes, Strand, Curty, and McAuliffe relay more fact than feeling.”
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“The major problem with ’The Lieutenant’ is that the title character is a cipher, and trying to turn him into an unfortunate victim of the war machine is flawed...Under the confident direction and choreography (minimal) of Bill Castellino, it seemed inconceivable the show was put together in five days...There is no set, only slides that decorate the back wall—the work of Peter Brucker and Matthew Gurren—which are highly effective.”
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