Star Tribune - Highly Recommended

"...We've all been to those plays -- the ones that sneak up after intermission and suddenly explode in a gripping dramatic scenario that stabs you in the heart. Playwright Carlyle Brown has managed that dynamic in "American Family," a world premiere that opened Friday at Park Square Theatre in St. Paul. Directed by Marion McClinton, the drama takes time to lay down an expository first act and then zeroes in with a focused intensity on a singular and fraught relationship."
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St. Paul Pioneer Press - Somewhat Recommended

"...Although the play is meant to end on hope, the path there feels too phony to make the ending work - even when Fischer comes back onstage for a moment of charm."
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How Was The Show - Recommended

"...The premise—that a white woman could be deemed an unfit mother because she married an African-American man—has plenty of impact to power dramatic action, but Brown chose to let the events of their lives be remembered. In other words, instead of showing us the turning point moments (for example, Mary Ellen finally opens her mother’s letters; Jimmy backs away from a potentially violent confrontation) we learn of these through the filter of the characters’ memories about them. This also gives the characters opportunities to explain themselves and add to the emotional threads that early in the play seem so beautifully intertwined and later become a tangle of hurt."
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CityPages - Somewhat Recommended

"...There's a lot of raw emotion and anger between the two, which at times overwhelms the otherwise fine actors, reducing all of this pain to a lot of shouting. The balance of the cast, led by Noel Raymond as Mary Ellen's mother and John Middleton as slimy absent father Billy, does solid work throughout the piece. Still, a muddled plot line near the play's end only adds to the sense that there's something missing from the experience. American Family reaches its height at the end of the first act. All the rest feels like an epilogue."
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