"Harris certainly isn’t the only playwright who writes lyrical dialogue with its own internal meter, but she is one of the best navigators of shifts in language and registers, even within a single scene. So we get tasty figurative gumdrops that subtly illuminate the inner thoughts of the characters...But Harris struggles with an overambitious story. 'On Sugarland' is unable to adequately unpack its cornucopia of themes...The issue isn’t a lack of exposition; it’s that 'On Sugarland' is inconsistent in the vocabulary it builds for itself."
Read more

"4/5 stars...The parallels Harris draws between the religious rituals of the Greeks and those of African-American churches are given full expression by director Whitney White and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly; they stage the memorial hollers—ecstatic rites incorporating call-and-response, dance and a chorus of boisterous teens—so that the audience is immersed in them...Stellar performances by Layne and Jones—the soul and heart of the play, respectively—keep us on track when the production threatens to lose its way. The supporting cast also does exceptional work."
Read more

"4/5 stars...The funerary custom hits like a gut punch every time in this production from director Whitney White, punctuating Harris’s dreamlike character studies with a collective electricity that exceeds language...Harris spins a circular narrative, one that often loops back on itself like the cul-de-sac where it’s set...There’s a reality to such repetition — what is a ritual but action on repeat? — and certain pleasures, too...But the stalled quality to the lives on stage eventually makes its way into Harris’ drama, which lacks an expansiveness and tension in its storytelling to fill 2 hours and 45 minutes."
Read more

"In 'On Sugarland' she scales up and out, inviting in more characters than she can safely handle, calling on myths and multiple framing techniques that shake her own storytelling abilities to their roots. The play flexes in both senses of the word. It shows off Harris’s impressive poetic muscles, but it also bends out of true, warping a little from what she asks it to contain...Since it’s the big picture where Harris falters, our attention turns to her parts rather than her whole. But what parts! Several of the speeches are the finest this season."
Read more

"Harris blends folk tale with Greek tragedy to create a heightened, lyrical atmosphere — untethered from time, place, and even laws of physics. Director Whitney White, with a confident vision of this dramatic no-man's land, reassures the audience that the who, what, when, and where of it all is irrelevant...'On Sugarland' spins an enormous web of intertwined stories and themes: loss, grief, ostracism, betrayal, unrequited love. It feels too expansive to even properly summarize. And yet, Harris sets each piece — delicately and ruthlessly — in its proper place, until a giant mosaic of contradictions comes screaming into focus."
Read more

Harris' previous works, including Is God Is and the often produced What to Send Up When It Goes Down, were both provocative and problematic, but leavened with a furious, clarifying wit. Here, despite Evelyn's calculatedly outrageous antics, a certain sententiousness creeps in, a preference for speechmaking over action. In On Sugarland the playwright creates an original world onstage, but she ultimately exhausts, letting her characters repeat themselves at length; no lamentation should be as long and as insistent as this.
Read more

"A big, sprawling, imaginative, ambitious, messy, over-written kaleidoscope of heartache that's as riveting as it is exhausting...The only serious problem with 'On Sugarland' is that it needs another edit to trim another 20-30 minutes...Special praise must be lavished on the principal cast of 'On Sugarland,' all of whom are uniformly superb, as well as Harris for writing so many fantastic roles for women, particularly older women who are too frequently overlooked by playwrights of all colors and ages."
Read more

"3/5 stars... So much of 'On Sugarland' does get out of hand, some of it for reasons germane to the script, but too often for reasons undercutting the script. Because Harris seems intent on arranging the scenes disjointedly, she challenges viewers to follow them. Some will. Others may not, deciding that the script doesn’t add up to—this isn’t necessarily a defeating outcome—much more than occasional fascinating talk (Sadie’s asides, for instance) and agile directing and ensemble acting."
Read more