I’m somewhere in the midwest, drinking a glass of red wine at a Euro Cafe and Philosophical Library. I’m probably reading a thesaurus, for leisure. I’m contemplating the working man’s self destructive obsession with a society that denies him the basic rights that should be afforded to him to live a full life. And somewhere along the line I get lost, caught up in the dance of my cigarette smoke in the lamplight. And as a drop of sweat starts to bead on my brow, I can’t help but wonder……..are the European and Rascal finally gonna kiss? They don’t, but the show is still worth seeing (I GUESS). RAISIN CAIN IN THE HAMMER LANE is a triumphantly chaotic and lovable mess. Smartly written with stupid jokes, the cast is absolutely electric in their portrayal of…something that’s sorta like a John Ford movie but also like an Adult Swim skit, and also like the kind of nightmare I’d imagine you would have if you passed out alone on a porch in the summer after drinking Blueberry Moonshine and woke up wondering if you were more scared or turned on. You know when you were a kid and you stayed home sick from school, and woke up at 3 am even though you thought it was noon, and there’s an episode of a daytime sitcom on and it’s somehow, in your hazy fever dream state, the best thing ever? This was A LOT like that.

— MACKENZIE BARTLETT, PortFringe 2019 Review Team

Men love each other. Then they hate each other. Then things get real weird. Perhaps Dr. Strangelove makes an incognito cameo. This is before or after the orangutan forms the crucial third point of a love triangle. I’m damn near certain there’s a plot in there somewhere. I might have missed it while hyperventilating during the office chair high-speed chase. All of which is to say: I hurt myself laughing and would gladly do it again.

— DOUGLAS W. MILLIKEN, PortFringe 2019 Review Team