Star Tribune - Recommended

"...“Our Country’s Good” can meander on occasion as it seeks to show many aspects of this 18th-century experience. It can bog down in the obligatory scenes of convicts hamming up during rehearsals. But by evening’s end, as tough criminals become vulnerable and anxious actors, we witness the alchemy of theater."
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Twin Cities Daily Planet - Highly Recommended

"...Our Country's Good is partly a play about the performance of a play, which is rehearsed in segments but never fully heard during the evening. Indeed, we never see so much as a full scene or a monologue finished before some interruption happens – but all these nevertheless add up to a magnificent whole."
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Twin Cities Pioneer Press - Recommended

"...At such times, the uniformly outstanding acting is in sharp relief. While all 10 cast members impress, I'll save special praise for those who create more than one memorable character. Tom Andrews makes men of two classes equally noble as the wise, compassionate governor and a linguist laborer in love. And, without the proof in the program, one could scarcely believe that the embittered, abusive major and the gentle, reluctant hangman are played by the same actor, Richard Neale."
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Aisle Say Twin Cities - Somewhat Recommended

"...The play’s arguments about theatre itself, though, are more problematic. Created, and subsequently revived, at times when arts funding was under threat, Our Country’s Good has the clear agenda of promoting the value and transformative power of the arts. This is an argument I support to the fullest; however, if “theatre is an expression of civilization”, then the play fails to think critically about whose civilization is being expressed and promoted. Although some convict characters rightly object that Farquhar’s Restoration comedy has nothing to do with them, Our Country’s Good ultimately portrays upper-class theatre as a means of civilizing the unwashed masses, a message that both condescends to its actors and sidesteps some of theatre’s real political and revolutionary potential. (As a plea for more funding, however, they play’s appeal to the charity of benevolent patrons of the arts is undeniable.)"
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