"A tantalizing, comic daisy chain of short plays by six playwrights. A couple are fun: Craig Pospisil’s 'Kissing Cousins,' in which two wedding guests discover that they’ve slept with the groom — one (the spot-on Amanda Sykes) quite recently — and Arlene Hutton’s 'Here Comes the Drone,' in which the bride has suffered a trauma. As a whole, though, 'Gorges' disappoints."
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"A collection of seven loosely connected playlets, the show is primarily concerned with questions of romantic and familial betrayal. Set in different rooms, smartly differentiated in Chris Goutman’s nifty staging, the pieces last about 10 minutes each, with most of the fine cast playing multiple roles…Not every segment is equally successful—there are several rooms for improvement—but most of the people checking in are work checking out."
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"It's satisfying to have a short peek into the lives of this smattering of characters...The flip side is that our windows in on these characters are brief and fleeting, and in few of these stories do we reach a satisfying point of conclusion…Certainly, leaving things ambiguous is a fair and valid literary choice, but when replicated across so many stories, it starts to feel less artful and more like a tease...But as long as you're OK with that going in, you'll likely find plenty to enjoy."
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"'Gorges Motel' is a great Fringe show to see for some lighthearted fare…Though at times sophomoric and bordering on stereotypical, 'Gorges Motel' is chock-full of surprises and jokes ready for a sit-com pilot. Certain segments grappling with grief, doubt, loss, and other heavier topics keep the evening grounded…While some of the stories were more fully integrated into the central throughline than others, it is quite entertaining to experience a 360-degree view of the Gorges Motel."
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"The resulting piece has the feel of somehow being 'woven together' without the scenes necessarily depending upon one another...Because of their brevity, these scenes require actors who are able to quickly develop characters with recognizable conflicts and who have the ability to establish setting with alacrity. Under Goutman’s steady and generous direction, the cast of seven handle these tasks with exceptional craft and flexibility...'The Gorges Motel' will not disappoint."
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“Such collective theater projects are almost inevitably uneven, but at its best, the play offers some quirky laughs and some touching oddness...Indeed, few of the pieces in ‘The Gorges Motel’ seem initially to fit naturally into a single work, but the final ‘Missing’ suggests that all the playwrights were guided by the metaphorical possibilities of the location - establishing an analogy between the natural wonder of the Watkins Glen gorge and the mystery of human connection.”
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