Icarus

"The mercurial qualities of love, dreams, and beauty provide the gently pulsating thrust of Edwin Sánchez's new play ICARUS…

New plays are often either hard and edgy or soft and sappy. ICARUS is the rare creation that is allowed to be both. Unabashedly sweet, often lyrical and even incisive, Sánchez's play takes a group of oddball characters-all searching, all damaged-and lets them do quietly wonderful things for one another…

Like the Greek myth from which the play takes its name, ICARUS is about super-charged dreamers whose wax wings melt when they fly too close to the sun…

ICARUS plays out like an inverted Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, though there's no magic to whip up a happy ending. But there are moments of grace that fill the play's one hundred minutes when the characters are momentarily released from their own traumas and attempt to help one another in unassuming but meaningful ways…

…in an enchanted setting, dreamers almost win, lovers nearly find happiness, and beauty kisses those who most deserve its fleeting glory. Reality ultimately kills the fairy tale, but nothing can stem the heartfelt charm and warmth that radiates from ICARUS."

Chad Jones, Oakland Tribune

"Like two battle-weary soldiers, Altagracia and Primitivo plod toward the beach. Primitivo, a boy whose contorted body languishes in a wheelchair, is nudged forward. His sister, half-dragging the chair, is marked by a maroon-colored gnarl that runs across her forehead and down the side of her face.

Just then, Primitivo, as cranky as a sleep-deprived two-year-old, begins to cry. The disquieting scene that opens Edwin Sánchez's ICARUS is enough to make anyone uneasy. But what initially seems like some postmodern cross between Beach Blanket Bingo and Freaks, Tod Browning's 1932 cult film, methodically unfolds into a thing of profound beauty.

And that's the point of ICARUS: Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder. It's something that runs deeper than the roots of an oak tree, down to some inner sanctuary that provides safety even in the harshest conditions. Sánchez's lyrical, often soaring portrait of dreamers is one of the sweetest, most affirming plays to come through the Bay Area in the last two years…

ICARUS is propelled by Sánchez's winning, playful script. His moving text is laden with the nuggets of information…that go into building a richly etched picture. A consummate story-teller, Sánchez also is careful to leave enough blank spaces on his canvas for the audience to fill in from their own imaginations…"

Mark de la Viña, San Jose Mercury News