"Entertaining if overambitious comedy...But the play loses its comedic way as it becomes more earnest about the issues it tackles...There are moments when the dialogue sparkles, and things could have easily gone awry in the first scene...But the scenes that make 'This Space Between Us' resonate with the humor of familiarity...get lost as the plot veers into heavier subjects...Gil-Sheridan has a talent for taut, realistic dialogue and satirical commentary, and he's adept at playing his characters' viewpoints off each other without taking sides."
Read more

At first glance, This Space Between Us appears to be written in English, but that's a superficial impression. In fact, the characters in Peter Gil-Sheridan's new comedy speak shtick, a dialect of English that is devoid of nuance and -- despite the script's many crude grabs for laughs – humor…t's never clear why anyone would want to spend nearly two hours with this noisy, shallow bunch. This Space Between Us has no intermission; if it did, you might be sorely tempted to put some space between you and them.
Read more

"Gil-Sheridan has also left a couple of boxes unchecked, and they compromise what's otherwise a promising, if undernourished, effort...The characters, by and large, don't grow, and Jonathan Silverstein's direction feels surfacey, maybe because surface is mostly what's there. Gil-Sheridan has salient things on his mind about social responsibility and parental and filial roles, and his dialogue rolls naturally and easily, if not in any particular direction."
Read more

"4/5 stars... Gil-Sheridan...approaches Jamie’s dilemma with a mix of empathy and whimsy that’s extended equally to all his characters—so that under Keen Company artistic director Jonathan Silverstein’s cogent guidance of an excellent ensemble, their motley foibles emerge as endearingly, frustratingly human, and often quite funny as well...That 'This Space Between Us' nonetheless leaves us relatively uplifted is a credit to everyone involved."
Read more

The world premiere of Peter Gil-Sheridan’s This Space Between Us gives itself away in its title: it is about a dysfunctional family that does nothing but argue when they get together. Jonathan Silverstein’s production for Keen Company bills itself as a comedy but unfortunately there are few if any laughs. While the author has an ear for realistic dialogue, he demonstrates little talent for plot, with the play as linear and predictable as could be. The only wrinkle in this timeworn theme is that the protagonist’s father is Cuban-born while his mother is American, and his Aunt Pat is a nun. One gets the feeling (possibly misplaced) that there is a semi-autobiographical element and the author is too close to his material.
Read more

The actors are adequate but little more, no one able to provide a convincingly three-dimensional human being within the constraints of this clumsy script. Ryan Garbayo probably comes closest, but there’s a big space between his tortured Jamie and most of the others, no matter how hard they try. The Keen Company may be back, but they’ll need a little more time to live up to their name.
Read more

"3.5/5 stars...The production is disappointingly flat footed. This is due, in part, to the fact that each of the play’s six characters makes choices that are unlikable, or just plain unlikely. And, in part, to the fact that playwright Peter Gil-Sheridan sacrifices a deep dive in favor of touching on a panoply of social issues...The cast find themselves unable to breathe life into their tricky roles...As a result, this space between us, the audience, and them, the actors, proves barely bridgeable."
Read more

“I can’t watch MSNBC and do nothing anymore,” says Jamie in “This Space Between Us.” Many of us surely have been feeling that way lately…Playwright Gil-Sheridan excels at witty bickering, which the six-member cast of pros largely nail… Amid the comedy, the playwright delivers some thought-provoking, unsentimental observations about Americans’ divergent do-gooder impulses. Such lively, worthwhile exchanges, however, are in danger of being drowned out by the disjointed story.
Read more