The success of Birch's play depends on a series of carefully timed revelations...Mercatali's direction of this taut, brief two-hander builds successfully to a climactic speech...A wounding recollection of two lives caught up in a disaster that became a political flashpoint and tabloid fodder...A tale of making decisions with far-reaching consequences, and of traumas that continue to reverberate until the present day...Has much to say about the sour, pre-Brexit mood of Britain.”
Read more

“Starts off promisingly with an air of mystery and tension...Unfortunately...it lands with a thud at the end of a lot of lengthy speeches leading to faulty conclusions...Neither of the characters is developed much, not through the performances nor Mercatali's direction, which keeps them emotionally detached...It appears that the playwright wants to use the forum to talk about socio-political issues...He conflates too many separate ideas that do not support the play's conclusions.”
Read more

"Tremor is more of an actors' exercise than it is a play. The two-character work concerns Sophie and Tom who come together for the first time in years. They are two of seven who survived a bus accident which killed 32 and which may have been a terrorist act on the part of the bus-driver, who, we're eventually told, was 'Muslim.' Like so much else that transpires in this 60-minute dialogue by Brad Birch, it's an unresolved enigma."
Read more

“Birch’s intense, riveting drama...A simmering verbal confrontation that starts out strong and never looks back as the two-character play careens forward...A beautifully constructed back and forth that seems to never stop for air...Mercatali keeps the production’s brisk pace on track...The tension never lets up. You find yourself hanging on every word, engrossed in the dynamic of two fine actors and their absorbing characters."
Read more

"It’s tense and exhilarating, as directed neatly and with an increasing level of anxiety by David Mercatali...Starring two very capable and gifted actors, Lisa Diveney and Paul Rattray, who do a sexually charged dance around one another, scratching at the pain in their souls that is just itching under their skin...It’s a beautifully urgent and electrifying tango, frighteningly revolving around fear, judgement, punishment, and panic attacks."
Read more

"The head-scratching conclusion of this otherwise flavorful onion seems to belong to some other dramatic veggie…While the play's multiple issues may sound like playwriting overkill, Birch juggles them sufficiently well to hold our interest if not necessarily to convince us one way or the other about any of them…Rattray, a pleasant-looking guy with a rich Welsh accent, and Diveney, a pretty woman, are fully invested…regardless of the audience in the tiny venue being only inches away."
Read more

"This gripping opening is ultimately squandered by a series of clumsy revelations and awkward sermonizing on contemporary politics, at which point the characters cease to be complex individuals and become stand-ins for competing ideologies...The dialogue is fast paced, full of stops and starts, which all works very well under David Mercatali’s tight direction, until the move away from mystery and tension and toward all-out exposition and speechifying."
Read more

“All the makings of sparse British play with much cerebral potential...Although covering so much ground in such a short period of time borders on inundation, the play is so expertly written and the story so carefully unveiled that this potential excess is not too negatively felt...Diveney and Rattray tell the story with clear talent and skilled professionalism...Director David Mercalati effectively stages the actors...He expertly shaped the piece in line with the playwright’s intent."
Read more