“It is difficult to imagine a piece of theater more perfectly suited to our jittery, antagonistic American moment than ‘Quietly,’ Owen McCafferty’s rage-filled, wounded, mournful play about terrorism, civil war and the damage that remains after the hatred cools. Directed by Jimmy Fay, this delicately acted production arrives on the stage like Dickens’s ghost of Jacob Marley, dragging the chains of sins committed long ago.”
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“The play unfolds in real time with the tension and urgency of Greek tragedy...O’Kane is harrowingly good, a bullet-headed knot of anger and bilious rue. Conlon’s stoical Ian is more contained, until he’s provoked past the paralysis of his guilt. And Zawadzki maintains a fine balance between the two, a gently comical observer, the bemused outsider. Jimmy Fay’s direction is rock solid and the terse, lean play grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go.”
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“McCafferty unpacks their story in that most Irish of fashions: extended monologues recounting painful memories. Luckily, the three actors in this cast are particularly good at painting vivid pictures with their tongues...Director Jimmy Fay endows this production with plenty of deafening silences as the three men stare up at the TV screen. The air is charged with electricity...Maintaining a vague air of menace and intrigue, ‘Quietly’ never allows us to settle into a false sense of security.”
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"A taut, intensely focused piece…Under Jimmy Fay's tense, highly observant direction, Conlon and O'Kane offer stunning performances...'Quietly' is only too relevant in this summer of terror; all the more valuable, then, is its eloquent argument that violence solves nothing, instead causing lasting harm to everyone whom it touches. At the performance I attended, it was received with the kind of rapt silence that occurs only when an audience is truly listening, hanging on every word."
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“This is a bracing gut-punch of an evening that hits all the buttons you need but never quite goes where you expect it to...Fay's direction highlights this in its subdued tension, which is always roiling away just beneath the surface. O'Kane and Conlon make superb foils for each other...O'Kane is violently energetic, Conlon looks burned out from the eyes downward, and it's impossible to say who is scarier...'Quietly' rings out loud and clear.”
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“Director Jimmy Fay complements the intense slow-burning dramatics with unhurried skill. But he also doesn't soft pedal one character's stunning bursts of brutal physicality...At its best, ‘Quietly’ is an impassioned play filled with gritty unpretentious dialogue. And the three terrific actors are splendidly recreating the vivid characters...It is a chilling reminder of how the climate of racism and intolerance and the threat of a terrorist attack has not significantly changed over the years.”
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"Both of the lead characters have such striking similarities that at times they come across as mouthpieces academically articulating 'The Troubles'...The production has accomplished actors in it that elevate the script...Fay has staged this small-scale work that’s essentially a series of interactive monologues with technical flair...'Quietly' is a theater piece that’s well rendered but is characterized by being overly schematic and doesn’t quite soar to the profound heights it aspires to."
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"You could hear the proverbial pin drop in the hushed silence of the theater, as the two men spoke their truths, sometimes quietly, other times harshly and, hard to believe, eventually in a somewhat reconciliatory manner so that a level of understanding could be reached. McCafferty’s writing precisely controls the pace and emotional bits and pieces of the grief that each has lived with all these years...The threesome is brilliant as directed by Jimmy Fay."
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