"A first-rate revival...Plays with theatrical traditions and the expectations that come with them...'The Red Letter Plays' allow us a chance to consider the extraordinary and elusive talent of Parks, a dramatist who seems to reinvent the form with every new offering...Benson reins in the hectoring and melodrama. Each performance is both subtly stylized and naturalistic enough for us to identify the characters as people we know."
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"Seizes you from the get-go...The play premiered in 1999, but now, with homelessness at record levels in NYC and a national backslide in women’s reproductive rights, it seems perhaps even more relevant. Its urgency is heightened by director Benson’s relentless pace and the ensemble cast’s unfettered performances...Parks’ scathing indictment of how society treats impoverished women gets your pulse pumping even as it breaks your heart."
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"Parks rages incisively, articulately, and sometimes even humorously against the capitalist machine...It’s not subtle, but Parks isn’t going for subtlety so much as confrontation...As Hester, Sengbloh gives a performance both innocent and frightening—and finally, devastating...Something special is happening right now at Signature Theatre...The plays are not easy to watch, but they’re vital, scrappy, angry, witty, articulate."
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"Almost 20 years after Parks wrote these two plays, the festering wound of the abortionist in 'F—ing A' and the hateful name that drove an earth mother to violence in 'In the Blood'—and more than 150 years after Hawthorne wrote 'The Scarlet Letter: A Romance'—the same words, the same symbols, the same damning letter can still make women weep with shame and rage...Saycon Sengbloh gives a remarkable performance."
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"'In the Blood' is the more serious and sensitive of the two plays...In spite of some slow patches (including confessional monologues), Sarah Benson’s two-hour, intermission-free production has a scorching brutality...Each production is an outstanding staging of a bold, difficult and provocative work. When viewed together, 'The Red Letter Plays' proves to be one of the most interesting and rewarding theater events of the fall."
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"A searing revival...Parks probes the limits of our tolerance as a society...Parks' Brechtian proclivities mean that her astute social points are often underlined with a Sharpie. This is especially true during the confessional monologues delivered by each character. Some of the actors struggle to hold our attention in these moments as a drama becomes a lecture. The performances are otherwise excellent under Sarah Benson's steady direction."
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"A solid remounting...Takes on the style of Greek tragedy, though, especially in director Sarah Benson's production, reality is raised to near-absurdist proportions. The heart-tugging Saycon Sengbloh stars...With America's current leaders looking to severely limit the government assistance made available to people like Hester, 'In the Blood' has sadly lost none of its relevance."
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"Even if 'In the Blood' conjures a potent dramatic situation that speaks acutely and fearlessly to the present moment, it falls short of being a fully realized play, preferring to reiterate the same points in confrontation after confrontation. Still, Saycon Sengbloh is a heartbreaking figure of endurance as Hester...Whatever one's feelings about these plays, they certainly provide confirmation -- if any was needed -- that Parks has plenty to say about female power and sexuality."
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