BRITISH COLUMBIA
Ross sat down with the CBC to discuss Goodness, exploring genocide on stage, and the production's long history with Volcano, including a life-changing trip to Rwanda.
CBC Vancouver, On The Coast, March 2012
The Vancouver Sun
Read the full review here
"a powerful exploration of human compassion and cruelty brought to heart-stopping life by Toronto’s Volcano Theatre"
Times Colonist
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**** 4 stars (out of 5)
"funny and tragic and sympathetic and sickening"
CVV Magazine
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"A challenging and memorable production...Goodness breathes new life into the morality play."
"wonderfully complex direction"
Vancouver Weekly
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"Subjects of war and genocide combined with the theatrical make for a production that leaves a lasting impression"
"It is easy to forget that you are watching a performance"
NEW YORK CITY
March 1 - 11, 2007 // Performance Space 122
Goodness Receives Rave Reviews in New York City!
The New York Times calls it "a gripping and important play about
genocide" and praises "the clarity of Mr. Redhill's language, the
economy of Ross Manson's direction and the excellent cast…." (March 7,
2007)
Read full review here
Backstage says:
"All the questions asked by the playwright and director Ross Manson
ring true… Coupled with the cast's easy theatricality, Redhill's
Goodness is intriguing and memorable." (March 6, 2007)
Read full review here
TORONTO
Sept 16 - 27, 2009 // The Theatre Centre
The Globe and Mail (3.5 / 4 stars):
Read full review here
"Stories might not be enough, but this story comes close."
"a play that fearlessly throws itself at the thorniest questions posed
by the violent last century and leaves no audience member unscratched."
"under Ross Manson's skillful, simple direction, Goodness works on all its levels"
The Toronto Star (3.5 / 4 stars):
Read full review here
"smoulderingly intense"
"gut-wrenchingly convincing"
"You won't find it easy to forget"
The Toronto Sun (4.5 / 5 stars):
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"Goodness reigns supreme"
"play about genocide brought to dizzying new heights with tremendous cast and inspired direction"
"it is a work that demands to be seen"
The National Post
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"powerful"
"superb"
"the personal and political... collide and explode"
Mooney on Theatre
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"the perfect balance is kept and the work is seemless"
"a marvel to watch"
"If you want a moving piece of theatre, go see it"
October 2005 // Tarragon Theatre
"Incisive direction and committed performances... Goodness radically
undermines commonly held beliefs that only good people suffer and that
suffering brings knowledge."
eye weekly
"A riveting, tense, unflinching production ... It's a thrilling piece
of theatre, raising issues you'll be debating long after you've left
the Tarragon."
NOW Magazine
"There's more than plain goodness in Goodness. There's fierce
intelligence in the writing of novelist and playwright Michael Redhill,
in Ross Manson's direction, and in Teresa Przybylski's set design, a
breathtaking but simple transformation of the Tarragon Theatre Extra
Space ... some of the most gripping moments I've seen in Canadian
theatre in quite some time."
The Globe & Mail
"Our morality is most often painted in stark shades of black and white,
while our lives most often are lived in shades of grey. It takes a huge
act of faith or intellect to draw the two together. They do come
together briefly and powerfully in Goodness ... In a careful alliance
between the playwright and director Ross Manson, the genocide in
question becomes not a single event, but instead embraces most of the
killing sprees that have horrified our modern age ... highly effective
..."
Toronto Sun
EDINBURGH
Traverse Theatre, August 2006
Edinburgh Cast:
Written by Michael Redhill, Directed by Ross Manson, Music Direction by
Brenna MacCrimmon, Lighting designed by Rebecca Picherack, Costumes
designed by Teresa Przybylski, Sound designed by John Gzowski. Starring
Victor Ertmanis, Lili Francks, Tara Hughes, Jack Nicholsen, Gord Rand,
Amy Rutherford
Goodness is a multi-layered exploration of genocide, laced with choral music from around the world.
Click here to listen to a CBC interview with Ross Manson in Edinburgh during the festival (4min 41sec, 4.3MB)
The Independent *****
In a time-shifting tangle of tales-within-tales, Michael Redhill's
Goodness explores, in the most intriguing way, the knotty question of
why good people carry out the most evil crimes... This explosive play,
its European premiere presented by Canada's enterprising Volcano
theatre, has genuine emotional texture, is rich in complexity,
quirkiness and surprise, and not without brief shafts of wit... I doubt
if there will be a more gripping theatrical experience than Goodness at
Edinburgh this year. - Lynne Walker, Thurs, Aug 21, 2006
The Herald ****
Searingly intense... a near Pirandellian inquiry into the nature of
truth, fiction, speculation and imagined history... Knitted together
via a series of role-playing flashbacks by a six-strong ensemble, and
with some spine-tingling choral singing derived from South Africa and
Eastern Europe, a serious and profound rumination on the weight of
moral responsibility in an unjust world goes beyond good and evil to
get its man. - Neil Cooper, Aug 21, 2006
The Scotsman ****
This complex piece of fractured storytelling has some terrific...
qualities, including a series of beautifully orchestrated performances
from its six-strong cast, an inspired, light-touch use of traditional
sung laments from Africa and central Europe, and an eloquent,
free-flowing abstract production by Ross Manson. Above all, the show
avoids the kind of easy cynicism that would have left Michael, as the
classic naive liberal hero, silenced by horror. He remains articulate
to the end, still defending his position with energy and wit; and when
the cast turn to the audience with a final challenging stare that asks how we would respond in the
kind of situation that leads to genocide, it's a mark of this show's
courage and its resistance to fashionable pessimism, that it leaves the
question feeling genuinely open. - Joyce MacMillan, Aug 21, 2006
Read full review here
UK Theatre Net *****
I didn't make many notes when I saw Goodness at the Traverse Theatre,
because I spent much of the time with my knuckles in my mouth trying
not to make a sound as I sobbed silently. This is an incredibly moving
piece of theatre about our ability as human beings to turn love into
hate and good into evil... a stunning piece of theatre... thoroughly
modern in conception... a tour de force of theatrical invention... This
is theatre that will reveal yourself to yourself, miss it at your
peril. - Antonia Windsor, Aug 17, 2006
The Guardian ***
Michael Redhill's knotty play is compelling, particularly in Ross
Manson's disarmingly simple and beautifully acted production... - Lyn
Gardner, Aug 18, 2006
Read full review here
