DANGEROUS LIAISONS
by Christopher Hampton
Stratford Shakespeare Festival — August-October, 2010
Sets & Costumes: Santo Loquasto — Lights: Robert Thomson — Sound: Michael Roth

"Stylish, intelligent and funny... Sex has never been a big commodity at Stratford, but that situation definitely changed on Thursday night when Dangerous Liaisons opened at the Festival Theatre... Ethan McSweeny's production of this slice of late 18th century French sensual intrigue is not only impeccably stylish, acerbically intelligent and mordantly funny, but it packs a truly erotic kick that is very welcome indeed."

"Technically, the show is Stratford at its best. Santo Loquasto creates a chilling world of metallic elegance, which respects the original period, but still gives everything a soulless modern edge. His costumes make everyone look eminently seduceable and the lighting of Robert Thomson knows when to blast us with cold white light, or dazzle us with rock 'n' roll primary colours... McSweeny, for someone who has never directed on the Festival stage before, shows an astonishing command of how to make that mystic space work. His direction is clear, precise, pointed, always showing us what we need to see, or — in the case of his detailed scene changes that involve the servants — showing us things we never expected to see as well. This is world-class theatre and we should be thrilled to have it on our doorstep." — Richard Ouzounian, The Toronto Star

"Deliciously engaging... to say the festival season goes out with a luxurious and seductive bang is an understatement. And it's all deliciously depraved enjoyment for cast and audience alike."

"Directed by Ethan McSweeny in an impressive Stratford debut, [Dangerous Liaisons] assembles some of the festival's stars in Seana McKenna, Tom McCamus and Martha Henry... witnessing McKenna and McCamus verbally joust on stage brings the script to life before our very eyes — language transformed into action, literature transformed into life in all its sordid glory."

"McSweeny adds a touch of contemporary musical theatre flair with refrains from a harpsichord giving way to driving electric guitar riffs — it works in marvelously jarring way... the juxtaposition of 18th century opulence and modern theatrical artifice is [further] achieved through the contrast between a magnificent crystal chandelier, complete with real candles, and banks of stage lights and a monumental stainless steel door as a backdrop. The production is not only stylish, thanks in large part to designer Santo Loquasto, but is one of the most unabashedly sexy productions ever staged at Stratford." — Robert Reid, The Record

"Dangerously irresistible... In an impressive Stratford debut, director Ethan McSweeny stages these wicked games on a chessboard set designed by Santo Loquasto. In between the scenes, he's choreographed what seems like a whole second shadow play between the various maids and servants who roll the sets on and off. It shows who's really in charge — soon, it'll be the ancien regime's heads they'll be rolling off. The scene changes take place to a soundtrack of harpsichord mixed with squealing electric guitar and are lit by Robert Thomson like a rock concert, linking this sexually licentious world to the decadence of more recent decades. As the tightly wound Tourvel, Topham loosens her corseted conscience only inch by inch — and the slow seduction only makes it all the hotter. It’s indeed impressive that she stays upright as long as she does, because she and McCamus have some truly sensational chemistry... Michael Therriault gets the second biggest laughs of the night as an inexperienced suitor, sheepishly caught with his pants down. The biggest one goes to Martha Henry as Valmont’s eccentric older aunt sharing her hairstyle and a communion wafer with her lapdog." — J Kelly Nestruck, The Globe and Mail

"Five-star Liaisons... Impressively directed by Ethan McSweeny and lavishly designed by Santo Loquasto, this is a compelling production [with] impressive performances throughout from a blue-blooded supporting cast — the venerable Martha Henry, the always impressive Yanna McIntosh and the evergreen Michael Therriault joining Jillard and Topham in an all but flawless ensemble — it belongs, in the end, to McCamus and McKenna... And well it should, for rarely have these two worked better, either separately or as a team. “ — John Coulborn, The Toronto Sun

"Sexual evil stalks Stratford stage... This final production of Stratford's 2010 season is also one of its best... director Ethan McSweeny has seen the exciting possibilities of the Festival Theatre's famous thrust stage for exploiting the hothouse intimacy of the play and of drawing the audience into its embrace... McSweeny, obviously excited by this space, makes outstanding use of it in mounting his exquisitely detailed dissection of the manners, mores and monstrousness of a culture soon to be felled by the revolution." — Jaimie Portman, The Vancouver Sun

ION
by Euripides, Tranlated by David Lan
Shakespeare Theatre Company, March-May 2009
Sets Rachel Hauck — Lights Tyler Micoleau — Costumes Rachel Myers — Music Michael Roth

"Maybe the gods really are crazy. In Shakespeare Theatre Company's sprightly new staging of Euripides' Ion, Apollo messes things up but good for a mortal royal family, despoiling the queen, deceiving her husband and keeping an heir in the dark about his lineage.

Director Ethan McSweeny, who showed in his arresting 2006 production of Aeschylus's The Persians a knack for the visual starkness of Greek tragedy, now takes on a work from antiquity of lighter spirit…courtesy of canny set designer Rachel Hauck, the stage of Sidney Harman Hall has been evocatively transformed into the craggy cliff top on which Apollo's temple rests. Time seems to stand still at this higher altitude. While we're welcomed outside the giant temple doors by Aubrey Deeker's classically gilded Hermes -- who majestically descends from the ceiling on a train of red fabric -- the site is invaded by five sassy actresses playing the chorus.

They're dressed not in the sort of outfits you find on Greek statues, but rather those you might see in the lobby of the Athens Marriott... the cheeky sensibility offers an appealing postmodern varnish, typified by the appearance at play's end of winged goddess Athene, who with great panache floats down from the clouds. As embodied by the delightful Colleen Delany, Athene seems intended to elicit giggles rather than shivers. At one point, she gazes out at us and offers a tiny shrug, as if to say: "What the heck do I know? I'm only a deity." — Peter Marks, The Washington Post

"****... Fresh. Bright. Fun. Not the words usually associated with Greek tragedy. Yet the Shakespeare Theatre Company's staging of Euripides' Ion, under the joyful direction of Ethan McSweeny, is more sunny than sorrow-struck. Those who associate Greek drama with much rending of togas and keening over butchered kin may find themselves caught charmingly off-guard by such light touches as the Chorus portrayed as a gaggle of nosy and tongue-wagging girl tourists — and a deus ex machina appearance by the majestically winged goddess Athena, who happily bangs a tambourine like a Hellenic member of the Partridge Family during the musical finale. "Ion" deals with the themes of identity and belonging. And for all its nimbleness, it is a mature work that questions authority as well as the infallibility of the gods we worship…There is something Obamaesque about Mr. Chappelle's charismatic and poised turn as Ion. Both are men who came from nowhere to become the leaders of great nations. According to Greek legend, Ion is the ancestor of all Athenians. Like the new president, he stands at the advent of something new and asks the people to believe in him. But wait, there's more: a happy ending. Ion concludes not with a pileup of bloodstained bodies, but with the catharsis of laughter, song and reunited families. This modern staging of a 2,500-year-old play provides a Parthenon of pleasures in a mere 90 minutes." — Jayne Blanchard, The Washington Times

"Euripides would love the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of his Ion, a passionate drama that finally resolves into a comedy... The success of this production is largely due to David Lan's fresh, contemporary adaptation, which retains all the complexity of Euripides' original. Director Ethan McSweeny has created a fanciful blend of the ancient and modern. His chorus is a clutch of tourists, circa 2009, who sing Michael Roth's delightful original music. Rachel Hauck's set is simple and effective: three huge columns on a raised, circular marble floor. The costumes, by Rachel Myers, are deliciously imaginative, particularly Hermes' golden outfits and Athena's gossamer gown and sturdy silver wings... Washington is fortunate to have a production of Ion, which is rarely produced. It is doubly fortunate to have this first-rate production, which reveals Euripides’ sophistication and wit so clearly. — Barbara Mackay, The Washington Examiner

"It is always good news when Ethan McSweeny returns to direct here. He is, after all, the former Associate Director of the company whose last outings were the sparkling Major Barbara for which he has been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award and the smashing production of Aeschylus' The Persians, which lingers in memory even three years later. Just as with the earlier production of a rarely performed ancient play, his touch is marked by an effort to make a play from millennia past work as well for a contemporary audience as its original may have for audiences now long dead. Again with Euripides' tale of possibly prevaricating deities, McSweeny makes an ancient tale both entertaining and edifying for a modern audience while using some nifty modern stagecraft to make his points. He has a fresh adaptation of the 2,500 year old play which studiously avoids stuffiness and once again uses visually impressive techniques to both provide the background information the audience needs and wrap it all up at the end - and the absolute final treat - a top-40s style pop song (yes, doo-wop in a Greek classic!)." "Drawing from the Shakespeare Theatre Company's treasure trove of regulars, McSweeny has the likes of Sam Tsoutsouvas for the would-be-father Xuthus, Floyd King for an old servant and adds newcomers of note in the key roles of Ion and his mother... The real find, however, is Keith Eric Chappelle. It seemed such a stretch to say that McSweeny hit on something when he cast a young Barack Obama look-alike as Ion who has such great things ahead of him, until I noticed that among young Chappelle's credits in New York was the role of Barack in something called Obama Drama. Whether intentional or not, as our town is enthused over our new President, there is a resonance to this casting that imbues the production with a contemporary hopefulness.” — Brad Hathaway, Potomac Stages


"It is easy to understand, in this sprightly adaptation by David Lan so well staged by Ethan McSweeny, that the stakes are nothing less than the fate of the human soul."

"It helps that McSweeny has an all-star cast... [but] the best part of the show is unquestionably the chorus: Rebecca Baxter, Lise Bruneau, Kate Debelack, Laiona Michelle and Patricia Santomasso. The traditional Greek chorus speaks the prescribed verses in unison but this chorus sings those verses, in gorgeous five-part harmony to Michael Roth’s beautiful music, accompanied principally by a fabulous cellist, Caleb Jones. It is McSweeny’s conceit that the chorus - handmaidens all to Creusa - come to Delphi as modern tourists, with iPods, suntan oil and cameras. They each establish their own (strikingly modern) personas, but when they first raise their voices to sing Euripides’ profoundly moving verses on children and childlessness, they immediately universalize their characters, and become the human race." — Tim Treanor, DC Theatre Scene

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
by Edward Albee
Center Stage — October-November 2008

"Center Stage, which is mounting a superb production of Edward Albee's harrowing drama, hasn't tackled Virginia Woolf since 1974, when an fire burned the theater to the ground... This time, all the fire is on stage... The talented director Ethan McSweeny elicits first-rate performances from his top-notch cast... The marvelous Deborah Hedwall portrays Martha as a woman who flaunts her sexuality but hides her intelligence...when the moment is right, [Andrew] Weems hurls an insult through the air like a blade, every syllable honed to maximum sharpness. "

"Early in the evening, ticketholders at Center Stage reacted almost as if they were viewing a comedy, responding to every put-down with laughter. By the time the show had ended, there was nary a cough, a murmur, a rustled program. Audience members barely dared shift position. It's as though we, and not Albee's characters, were on the hot seat." — Mary Carole McCauley, The Baltimore Sun

"When you see Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in its magnificent new production at Center Stage, this 46-year-old play is nothing like its caricature... There's a surprising number of laugh-out-loud funny moments, especially in the first act, and some heartbreakingly sad moments as well, especially in the third. Above all, there's the brilliant writing--not only in the inspired wordplay of puns, allusions, and double meanings, but also in the way artifice, in the form of both party games and literary fiction, is used to distort and ultimately reveal reality... and this terrific cast sucks us in during each confidential lull and then knocks us over with each new climax... As Martha, Hedwall is a force of nature, dominating the stage... Weems isn't as showy as Hedwall, but he's every bit as good... These are two of the best performances you will ever see on a Baltimore stage." — Geoffrey Himes, Baltimore City Paper

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
by Arthur Miller
Guthrie Theater — September-October 2008

"Gifted actor John Carroll Lynch plays Eddie, the problematic center of Ethan McSweeny's stunning production of Arthur Miller's psychosexual classic...The volcanic staging -- a mountain range with eruptions followed by sizzling quiet -- flows like a great inflected opera...There is more than a touch of the ancient Greek in this tragedy, which is redolent with issues of lust, justice and immigrant dreams of America...McSweeny's masterful staging, which makes excellent use of the thrust stage, underscores Miller's primal poetry." — Rohan Preston, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"From the beginning, you know the thing is going to end badly; it's just a question of who is going to kill who, when, and why. Guided by Ethan McSweeney's unobtrusively intelligent direction, the noose slowly tightens around Eddie's neck, until all his good intentions eventually lead him down the exit ramp to hell."

"The set, staging, casting, and direction all feel perfectly suited for this play, which is a testament to McSweeny's talent for putting the text and characters first, rather than shellacking it with his own ideas about what the play "should" be trying to communicate. Miller's message in A View is as ancient as the Greek dramas upon which it is based, but seeing it unfold in a contemporary drama, with characters the audience can relate to, gives the play's final moments a much more immediate impact. These are simple people trying to get along in a complex world, which is of course a recipe for disaster—and, when it's done well, great drama." — Tad Simons, Minneapolis St.Paul Magazine

"Ethan McSweeny directs with a sure hand and has a made-to-measure cast. John Carroll Lynch plays Eddie in a powerful realization of a big, middle-aged man, kind, but domineering and blind to himself. Beatrice comes to full life in the hands of accomplished Amy Van Nostrand ... Robyn Rikoon's engaging young Catherine begins as fresh as a morning in spring, but circumstance forces her to mature before our eyes...[Ron] Menzel infuses Marco, a family man who has starving children at home, with quiet passion...[Bryce] Pinkham charms as intelligent Rodolpho. "

"Lovely touches from director McSweeny add to the realism...When Catherine throws herself into Eddie's arms, he staggers for a second and feels his back; he's a stevedore who lifts heavy goods for a living. During the dramatically lit dockside loading scenes, ships' horns sound in the distance in David Maddox's sound design. The lawyer's desk is heaved on stage by stevedores, unpacked and, voila, Donald Holder's lighting turns a corner of the stage into an intimate office. McSweeny uses the generous space of the thrust stage to great affect, and I find it hard to imagine this expansive play being confined by a proscenium stage. My advice, go and see the Guthrie's muscled production of A View from the Bridge. " — Elizabeth Wier, Talkin' Broadway

DEATH OF A SALESMAN
by Arthur Miller
The Chautauqua Theater Company — July 2008

"The Chautauqua production, starring Stuart Margolin as the tortured protagonist Willy Loman and directed by CTC co-Artistic Director Ethan McSweeny, is incredibly well conceived and executed by the company's mix of conservatory members and visiting artists. Revelatory performances from Margolin and conservatory member Zach Appelman provide the freight-train force behind the production, and they are helped by a fiercely gifted supporting cast, along with the well-oiled staging and perfect pacing for which McSweeny has become known. For Chautauqua Theater Company, McSweeny and especially for Margolin, this all-too-brief production of Miller's masterpiece is a truly remarkable thing indeed." — Colin Dabkowski, Buffalo News

"One of the finest American plays ever written is on the stage of Chautauqua's Bratton Theater this week, in a production as good as the play itself." "If you were one of those slugs who read the abbreviated notes when your English teacher brought out Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman,' this is your opportunity to understand why this play is taught and revered all around the world. Great directors have found many approaches to playwright Miller's wonderful words. At Chautauqua, Ethan McSweeny has found threads of fatalism in the play, subtly highlighting how Willy's own childhood had taught him to live on dreams, and how he has raised his own sons with exactly the same values which have served him so badly." — Robert W. Plyler, Jamestown Post-Journal

MAJOR BARBARA
by George Bernard Shaw
The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC — February - March 2008

"McSweeny guides his meticulously chosen cast through the mazes of Shaw's debates over the social responsibilities of the privileged vs. the pious as if the actors had been hired for their skills both in elocution and mischief-making. When Shaw's tenaciously argumentative works are handled by particular craftsmen who possess a flair for his eyebrow-raising satire as well as his rhetorical pugilism, Shaw can be an out-and-out "up." That, fortunately, is how Ethan McSweeny's posh production comes across in the company's Harman Center for the Arts." — Peter Marks, Washington Post

"George Bernard Shaw liked to skewer 'em now and again, so it's fitting that director Ethan McSweeny is doing pretty much the same with the opening gambit in his sleek, smart staging of Major Barbara. Wouldn't do to spoil the effect, so let's just say that with a single gesture (you'll want to watch those title-card projections), McSweeny deftly, wittily disarms audiences who might be stressing about a long evening in the company of the old blowhard's overwrought, overwritten speeches...Minutes later comes the discovery– delightful surprise–that the drawing room of Lady Britomart Undershaft (sublime Helen Carey) has been commandeered by a swarm of Oscar Wilde's best and brittle-est Thank god for a director and a cast who remember that Shaw's stern sociopolitical lectures come with plenty of laugh lines."

"The repartee is rousing, the satire sharp, and really, any director who can get four separate laughs out of four separate exits, not to mention a belly laugh out of a bit with a throw pillow—in a Shaw play?—is unmistakably on his game." — Trey Graham, Washington City Paper

"McSweeny has a keen sense of timing and keeps the production moving, pushing past stumbling blocks that could easily derail a less experienced and committed director. He handles all three acts which require three completely different sets with one intermission, clocking the production in at 2 hours 30 minutes-no easy feat. Furthermore, McSweeny is not afraid of poking laughter into what could be interminable moments and usually finds a spark of light-hearted fun in even the most dreadfully deadened situations. Such talents are particularly useful here because despite Shaw's wit and repartee, he can still get bogged down hammering his various points. McSweeny's light touch helps in those tough spots." — Debbie Jackson, DC Theatre Scene

"The Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington has created a production of Major Barbara that is sumptuous in both its cast and its staging. The vividly appointed sets, designed by James Noone, and Robert Perdziola's cleverly detailed costumes are no more dazzling than the performances marshaled by director Ethan McSweeny...The skillful cast, demonstrating great ease with speeches that could sound like position papers in lesser hands, bring out the lasting truth in the arguments." — Susan Berlin, Talkin' Broadway

"Director Ethan McSweeny fortunately understands that there is fun to be had with Shaw's challenging discourse -- and that the most successful sermons do not sound like sermonizing. As a result, not only is the clash that Shaw creates between idealism and realism fully explored, but the human story of people who are seeking a path toward reconciliation is also to be found. Superbly aided by posh sets and elegantly detailed costumes, this production is both eye candy and brain food rolled into one clever morsel." — Michael Toscano, Theatermania

IN THIS CORNER
by Steven Drukman
The Old Globe Theatre — January 2008

"The production, kinetically directed by Ethan McSweeny, keeps the intellectual bob-andweave lively. A prizefight atmosphere dominates even when the only thing happening is an expository swirl of reporters, managers, announcers and trainers... Drukman... treats the slangy speech of each character as though it were part of a hip-hop poetry slam. McSweeny ingeniously converts the old-school word-spinning into modern-day theatrical rhythm. McSweeny's direction finds the energetic soul of Drukman's drama." — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times

"...as sheer entertainment Ethan McSweeny's colorful Old Globe world preem wins a decision on points." — Bob Verini, Variety

"There's plenty to admire in this production. Director Ethan McSweeny alternates between breathless speed with rat-a-tat delivery (think "His Girl Friday" as a boxing movie) and scenes of quiet revelation. " — Paul Hodgins, Orange County Register "Stephen Drukman's In This Corner, in a superb world premiere on The Old Globe's ring-size Cassius Carter stage, lets two legendary heavyweight boxers from the 1930s battle for personal dignity against the profit-and-propaganda process that turns people into products. In director Ethan McSweeny's gritty staging, Corner drapes its message loosely over these real-life champs, allowing us to learn about the men beneath the mantles as we gain empathy for 'products' then and now, in sports and beyond, whose extended "entourages" aren't so much in their corners as in their pockets."

"In the 1930s, radio added play-by-play sports coverage to its media arsenal. Families across the country now listened in unison to events like presidential addresses and heavyweight fights. And, in respect of that powerful presence, McSweeny stops the action to stage the 1938 fight merely through the power of words spoken first from the original broadcast, then picked up by Smith's oracular ringside voice. The heightened language of the announcer, the sportscaster and the newspaper columnist give the show its bitter flavor, like a rum-soaked stogy."

"McSweeny and designers Lee Savage and Tracy Christensen go for the total realism of a boxing ring, turning the audience into spectators, with "off-stage" actors "ringside" as much as possible. The "you are there" sensation begins during pre-show with John Keabler's sweaty workout as "the boxer." This detail accentuates the underlying metaphor of life in the ring." — TheaterTimes.org

"A raised boxing ring is a directorial challenge, with ring ropes obscuring the sightlines and the difficulty actors face getting in and out of the ring, but director Ethan McSweeny rises to the challenge. He moves the play all around the theater, creates a snarky, cynical edge to the story and lightens and brightens the dialogue with rat-a-tat, screwball line delivery in New Yawk-ese." — Pam Kragen, North County Times

1001
by Jason Grote
p. 73 Productions — November 2007
"People and their passions fly off the page in Jason Grote's dynamic, intellectually agile 1001, a postmodern epic about the cultural narratives that shape our lives. In the production's opening sequence, an Arab woman detonates a bomb in Times Square by opening an antique copy of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights; for the next half hour the audience is immersed in a frisky, tongue-in-cheek take on the story of Scheherazade (Hope) and the infantile emperor Shahriyar (Rauch). But the play soon hyperlinks out into an Escher world of interlocking time frames and plots, ranging from modern and future New York—where Rauch and Hope are reincarnated as a liberal Jewish grad student and his Palestinian girlfriend—to a deserted beach where Sinbad the Seaman literally meets Jorge Luis Borges...Ethan McSweeny's in-the-round staging for Page 73 Productions lays a bright thread through 1001's labyrinthine twists, with help from a crackerjack design team and cast." — Adam Feldman, Time Out New York

"Director Ethan McSweeny, who helmed the play's world premiere in February for Denver Center Theater Company, keeps tight control over the narrative. Time and space shift in a moment, but it's always clear where we are...With his design team, McSweeny also translates ambitious stage directions into dynamic visuals...As Alan and Dahna dance at a club, for instance, the other cast members carry on an enormous blue cloth, which they hurl upwards like a parachute. As the cloth falls, we expect it to drape around bodies, but it settles to the floor as though nothing were beneath it. Then, in a far corner, we see Alan using the fabric as a blanket. Only now he's Shahriyar, and we've gone back in time. That image not only surprises, but also enhances the theme of fluidity."

"Elsewhere, McSweeny smooths the script's roughest edges. Grote often gives characters transitional monologues about the stories we'll be hearing, and their purple descriptions get ridiculously overwrought. However, as the narrator stands in place, the other actors scurry like mad, changing costumes or hurling sets into place. The monologues feel vital because we watch how they summon a world into being." — Mark Blankenship, Variety

"Ethan McSweeny's kinetic direction keeps the piece, at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, moving in a quick and lucid way, as it ranges from Sinbad's tale to Hitchcock's "Vertigo" to Dahna and Alan on a visit to Gaza." — Caryn James, New York Times

100 SAINTS YOU SHOULD KNOW
by Kate Fodor
Playwrights Horizons — 2007

"Under Ethan McSweeny's astute guidance, 100 Saints You Should Know's first-rate cast is beautifully alert to the recurrent sense of missed opportunity built into Fodor's writing— those moments in which tentative gestures of goodwill are overlooked or deflected, and the ripples of defensiveness that follow. But the scenes that linger most affectingly after the curtain are those in which some small breakthrough is awkwardly accomplished: Theresa stroking Matthew's head in a hospital emergency room, for instance, or Abby lowering her defenses after a terrifying night. At its best, this gentle, lovely new play leaves you not just touched, but more sensitive to the value of touch itself." — Adam Feldman , Time Out New York

"Ms. Fodor has a fine sense of the forms of emotional aggression, passive and otherwise, that can infuse even the most banal exchanges between parents and children at loggerheads, as well as a good ear for the kinks and curls of speech of people of different generations and education. These gifts are most appealingly on display in the early scenes that set up these fractious relationships. A Scrabble game between Colleen and Matthew, newly returned to the home where he grew up, becomes a deft and touching exercise in thwarted communication. A standard stalemate debate between Abby and Theresa on the usual teenager-parent subjects (school, sex, bad influences) has a piquant ring of realness that keeps it from congealing into clichés." — Ben Brantley, New York Times

"Fodor is blessed with a handsome production. Her play's many short scenes are sensitively and fluidly staged by Ethan McSweeney. Rachel Hauck's elegant rotating set (gorgeously lit by Jane Cox) effectively avoids the too many stark blackouts typical of this structure. The five excellent actors succeed in making the most of their characters' vulnerabilities and downplaying their essentially standard issue qualities." — Elyse Sommer, CurtainUp

"Kate Fodor, bless her sympathetic soul, has just the right qualities. Her thoughtful and affecting 100 Saints You Should Know begins with Theresa (Janel Moloney) scrubbing a toilet. There's something so direct, so matter-of-fact about showing her on the job—most plays of this kind would just have her complaining about it to her alienated kid—that Fodor's story ennobles her, like a Dutch master immortalizing a laundress at work...All of this might have yielded little more than a Raymond Carver story if not for an exquisite cast, expertly directed by Ethan McSweeny. Thanks to some go-for-broke choices, impressive young Zoe Kazan makes the daughter seem part cherub and part imp—a touchingly vulnerable hellion." —Jeremy McCarter, New York Magazine

1001
by Jason Grote
Denver Center Theatre Company — January 2007

"Building on the extravagant embellishments gathered under the collective literary umbrella known as "The Arabian Nights" playwright Jason Grote delivers a phantasmagoric take on the timeless tales in 1001, explored to visual and emotional perfection by director Ethan McSweeny and the cast and crew.

"Helmer McSweeny pull out all the stops to carry Grote's Google-inspired mental hopscotch onto the stage. He employs one of Denver's top DJ's, Sara Thurston, for a live mix that taps into contemporary emotions latent in the hybrid storyline, a potent lure for the twentysomething demographic. Thirty-one economical scenes punctuated by stunning craft work lend a quick-cutting, cinematic texture that suggests possible adaptability to the bigscreen." — Bob Bows, Variety

"Innovative spectacle...dazzling staging. McSweeny and his completely winning young ensemble of six newcomers employ novel staging concepts that would make Julie Taymor proud." — John Moore, Denver Post

"Director Ethan McSweeny meets the playwright's challenge with a production as inventive as the script: trap doors, luxe costumes, the transformative dance of sex under a blue parachute and a Cirque de Soleil death plunge increase the comedy and the otherworldliness, as well as comment on that exoticism. McSweeny provides one more bit of luxury and energy with DJ Sara Thurston, who mixes contemporary and Eastern strains throughout the evening. Like everything else in this show, it is both ancient and immediate, celebratory and mournful, fact and fiction." — Lisa Borenstein, Rocky Mountain News

THE CHERRY ORCHARD
by Anton Chekhov
The Chautauqua Theater Company — July 2006

"Marvelous! Director Ethan McSweeny strikes the ideal balance between comedy and tragedy...[he] finds that curious intermingling of feeling that makes Chekhov seem both funny and sad at once... Lisa Harrow brilliantly injects into the role several wholly new jolts of irony that point up the utter purposelessness of this diminished aristocrat...Stuart Margolin's ebullience, his antics, his cowed silence – it's all a joy to watch...The surface of this production shimmers with well-measured comedy, even as a distant melancholy hums steadily underneath...I suspect Chekhov himself would find the interpretation endlessly amusing to watch." — Richard Huntington, The Buffalo News

"A masterful performance of a dramatic masterpiece...universal and emotionally resonant." — Dave Zuchowski, The Erie Times

"A gossamer beauty...subtle and delicate and profound." — Robert Plyler, Jamestown Post-Journal

"A stunning production." — Willard Spiegelman, Wall Street Journal

THE PERSIANS
by Aeschylus, new version by Ellen McLaughlin
The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC— March-May, 2006
"Director Ethan McSweeny cuts a stunning path to this turning point of The Persians. At the back of the Shakespeare Theatre Company's stage, Erin Gann's Xerxes , the callow king, materializes. As he begins to walk forward a fine spray of scarlet sand rains down on him ... It's a potent moment in McSweeny's acutely theatrical take on this 2,500-year-old play. The evening that results is elegiac, somber, [and] invigorated by several actors of particular finesse, vivid turns of phrase, and some inspired bits of staging." — Peter Marks, The Washington Post

"Triumphant! McSweeny packs plenty of spectacle in both the show's physical aspects and the forthright potency of Aeschylus's descriptions of the carnage of war; they contain a harrowing beauty that grips the senses." — Jayne Blanchard, The Washington Times

"When a playwright's message is dire, it's useful to have a few theatrical miracles to back it up, and Ethan McSweeny's breathtaking mounting of The Persians has plenty."

"There's the stagewide cyclorama that lets the director blast Western literature's oldest surviving play into orbit, Google Earth–style, just as it's getting under way; the beach of red sand that morphs from a lush Persian carpet into a sea of gore; the mirrored wall of lights that seems simply utilitarian until it's time to bake the play's warmongers in disgrace; and the startling, climactic rain of blood that rattles whatever part of a playgoer's psyche Aeschylus hasn't already rattled with words that echo across more than two millennia of human folly."

"McSweeny orchestrates a rush of images that are alternately majestic (the queen's arrival) and worthy of a horror film (red sand dripping like blood through her fingers)...Still, the director and his performers have created one moment of fiercely personal tension at the play's climax. It comes when Xerxes kneels in disgrace before his mother and she starts to reach out toward him. For a long, wrenching moment, it's not clear whether she's reaching out in fury at the pain he's caused or in compassion for the pain he's in, and after so much declaimed agony, so much breath-catching imagery, this private moment catches the audience up short. The director prolongs the suspense for an extra couple of beats and—as the sheer emotional rawness expands to fill the auditorium—almost seems to point the way to the more intimate theater we know today." — Bob Mondello, Washington City Paper

A BODY OF WATER
by Lee Blessing
The Old Globe Theatre — February-March, 2006

"[A] deftly acted, meticulously directed and beautifully designed production...Director Ethan McSweeny underscores the farcical elements in Blessing's script, an aspect of tone probed astutely by Sandy Duncan... Blessing's play is an all-American family drama...a drawing room tragic-farce."

"[And] what a drawing room it is...[an] austere platform of dark planks with matching coffee table and a few white and chrome designer chairs floats on four pools of aquamarine water which York Kennedy's lighting set to shimmering. [McSweeny] also creates a rain shower that is magical. Michael Roth's original music – for stings, female voices and the virtuoso Peter Sprague on guitar – creates similar effects...For the playwright, A Body of Water represents a breakthrough toward a more distilled and abstract form of storytelling." — Anne Marie Welsh, San Diego Union-Tribune

"McSweeny has elicited exciting portrayals of calm at the edge of reason as well as crack creative work from his designers ... [especially] an unforgettable sequence when, between two Act II scenes, the windows lower into the pools instead of rising. When the panes are pulled up to haunting piano accompaniment, the perforated troughs along the bottom create sheets of rain. It's a powerful and ominous image ..." — Theaterealtor.com

"A nicely shaped and handsomely designed West Coast premiere...Director Ethan McSweeny coaxes excellent, well-calibrated performances from all three actors, most notably Duncan, who manages to dispel memories of her perky, plucky stage and screen persona with a nuanced and wry ensemble turn." — Jennifer de Poyen, Variety

ALL MY SONS
by Arthur Miller
Chautauqua Theater Company — July 2005

"A shattering performance...brilliantly directed by Ethan McSweeny and superbly performed by a strong cast of professional and conservatory actors...The production compares favorably with shows I saw this summer at the Stratford and Shaw festivals in Canada." — Wilma Salisbury, The Cleveland Plain-Dealer

"A superb production...the cast is excellent...Harrow is spellbinding...Margolin is the perfect counterpoint...Charles Semine is powerful and memorable...McSweeny's staging is unfailingly sharp throughout... [he] gives this first outing a visceral excitement and emotional coherence that promise great things for the future." — Richard Huntington, The Buffalo News

"Sucks the audience into an emotionally gripping story [that] holds you in rapt attention, arcing its way to its devastating conclusion with the momentum of destiny ... A powerful debut for the new artistic team." — Dave Zuchowski, The Erie Times

"There is stunning, breathtaking theater on stage at Chautauqua this week...If Ethan McSweeny's first production as artistic director is typical of what audiences can now expect at Chautauqua Theater, tickets are going to be sold out months in advance for every performance they present...See this production, if you possibly can!" — Robert Plyler, Jamestown Post-Journal

A BODY OF WATER
by Lee Blessing
Guthrie Theater — June-July, 2005

"The Guthrie production, directed by frequent Blessing collaborator Ethan McSweeny, develops an autumnal chill that nicely complements the plays sorrowful undertow. Dead leaves swirl outside a giant picture window that overlooks an endless, indistinct expanse of water [and] falling shadows hint at the primordial fear that night will swallow all memory." — Peter Ritter, Variety

"Director Ethan McSweeny again teams with Blessing to produce a smooth, seamless staging. McSweeny finds the mordant humor in the piece and shapes and blends the performances so that characters and audience alike spend the evening at the brink of understanding, which is right where the playwright wants us." — Dominic Papatola, Pioneer Press

SABINA
by Willy Holtzman
Primary Stages — January-February, 2005

"Sex! Madness! Scandal! Horny psychiatrists! Given back her voice in Ethan McSweeny's handsome revival, [Sabina Spielrein] makes an eloquent case for herself...McSweeny milks the pre-coital buildup in the first act [and] Ireland and Slezak go for the psychosexual gold when Sabina iniates Jung into her seductive theories of the death instinct..." — Marylin Stasio, Variety

"ENGROSSING! Ethan McSweeny's production...provides a provocative window into the much-studied relationship between Freud and Jung. Peter Strauss gives an admirably understated performances as a paternalistic Freud and Victor Slezak, as Jung, likewise gives persuasive dramatic life to a now-mythic figure. Mark Wendland's cleanly constructed set depicts human emotion coloring an institutional space. The conflict between scientific and human necessities expressed in the play is echoed in the contrast between the lush red-velvet curtains that define the playing area and the gray metal beams and girders that loom above them." — Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

"Director Ethan McSweeny and designer Mark Wendland have created a production that, despite a smallish stage, has the physical sweep to match Holtzman's thirty-year spanning psycho-drama...Marin Ireland gives a riveting performance...McSweeny is a director who knows how to reinforce and further the action with all sorts of inventive touches. The placement of violinist Batya MacAdam-Somer at the front side of the balcony, if full view of the audience to play Michael Roth's lovely original music enhances what's happening on the stage but without distraction. McSweeny's creative approach to Holtzman's emotionally charged and often amusing faction make for two hours of lively theater." — Curtain Up

"[Willy] Holtzman delivers a subtly provocative and even charmingly funny play which has been richly realized in this production directed with chic panache by Ethan McSweeny" — Talkin' Broadway

CHASING NICOLETTE
Music by David Friedman, Book and Lyrics by Peter Kellog
Prince Music Theater — December-January, 2004/5
"HILARIOUS! A Funny Thing and The Producers are fast company to travel in, but this new show at the Prince Music more than keeps up...the high-quality script and score are presented in a top-notch production directed by Ethan McSweeny. Led by Bronson Pinchot in the principal comic role, the cast is uniformly strong, Neil Patel's settings are colorful and comically effective, and Constance Hoffman's costumes evoke the period with flair." — Douglas J Keating, Philadelphia Inquirer

"'Crime is up employment down and still our taxes soar...' The year is 1224, the ‘modern times' of this appealing musical, and – despite its Big Issues (‘race, religion, color, class, and money') – the temptation to make it relevant is cleverly resisted. Performed by a uniformly fine cast, Chasing Nicolette is both melodic and witty – all the dialogue is in couplets and a canyou- top-this game develops as we wait for the next impossible rhyme – but the show is goofy too, and likely to appeal to kids as well as adults." — Toby Zinman, Variety

"This musical has it all...the kind of show they mean when people ask, "why don't they make musicals like they used to?" Ethan McSweeny directs with verve, pulling together the action, pacing, music, and visual components." — Kathryn Oselund, Curtain Up

SOMEONE WHO'LL WATCH OVER ME
by Frank MacGuinness
Westport Country Playhouse — June-July, 2004

"Those seeking an intense brilliantly presented performance should make the trip to watch the Westport Country Playhouse's Someone Who'll Watch Over Me." — Elizabeth Gerteiny, Weston Forum

"Looming silences are key, perfectly times and injected...It is a sparseness that under the direction of Ethan McSweeny beautifully focuses attention on the intense and heart-wrenching voice the actors give to their characters' respective wisdom, kindness, and strength." — Camilla Herrera, The Stamford Advocate

MR. MARMALADE
by Noah Haidle
South Coast Repertory Theater — April-May, 2004

"The name Mr. Marmalade is the only sweet, tasty, and benign aspect of South Coast Repertory's controversial world-premiere play. In the best sequence of this production, superbly directed by Ethan McSweeny, Adams opens his oversize trench coat (a costume triumph for Angela Balogh Calin) and pours out mountainous amounts of junk food stolen from 7-Eleven, then proudly organizes a dinner of treats for himself and Lucy" — Joel Hirschorn, Variety

"...All of this might be a bit too horrifying if Haidle, director Ethan McSweeny and the designers weren't continually reminding viewers that what's unfolding onstage is merely make believe." — Darryl H. Miller, The Los Angeles Times "Director Ethan McSweeny has worked hard with Nagel and Adams. Their performances are childlike, not childish; they don't resort to the kind of surface brattiness and over-thetop physicality some adult actors employ when playing kids." — Paul Hodgins, The Orange County Register

ROMEO AND JULIET
by William Shakespeare
The Guthrie Theatre — March-May, 2004

"A symphony! Director Ethan McSweeny's Guthrie Theater credits range from the revelatory (Gross Indecency) to the sublime (last year's breathtaking Six Degrees of Separation). With Romeo and Juliet the young visionary displays similar imagination and ambition." — Rohan Preston, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"OUTSTANDING! McSweeny has placed the action in a mysterious place, a simultaneously dilapidated and glamorous construction site/abandoned movie theater, and he and the designers have created a hip, temporal salad." — Dylan Hicks, City Pages

"McSweeny's ambitious and intelligent production moves seamlessly between low comedy and high tragedy ... [he] creates stage images that illuminate Shakespeare's language and open up the text for a contemporary audience."

"Set and costume designer Mark Wendland's visual vocabulary for the she is incredible. The set looks like Ground Zero: a stage of wooden planking surrounded by ‘ashes;' three stories of metal scaffolding and plastic sheeting extending back stage; a gothic cathedral-like tower becomes the balcony, marriage bed, and tomb; old theater seats live upstage and amongst the ashes."

"[The] production ... brilliantly evokes the sense of devastation, destruction, and dread that's become our universal screensaver over the last few years; it also reminds us that passionate love can transform this bitter landscape into one of reconciliation and renewal." — Michelle Pett, Talkin' Broadway

"McSweeny's brooding production is perhaps the most daring of recent Shakespearean ventures at the Guthrie...[he] returns some of the daring that Dowling's crowd-pleasing productions too often lack; that he does so with a play that inevitably draws crowds suggests that we may at last be seeing a successful marriage between box office savvy and theatrical experimentation. McSweeny's Romeo and Juliet calls attention to itself as an act of theater; it demands that we consider how tragedy is constructed – onstage and off." — Douglas E. Green, The Shakespeare Quarterly

A WALK IN THE WOODS
by Lee Blessing
George Street Playhouse — November 2003

"One of this season's most satisfying nights in the theater...Thanks to director Ethan McSweeny and two astonishing actors it's now receiving a better production at the George Street Playhouse than it did on Broadway 15 years ago... A Walk in the Woods is not an easy play to direct, but McSweeny gets the juice out of the comedy, then switches gears nicely to the second act when things inevitably get more serious. Who'd think that a play about a treaty could be such a treat?" — Peter Filicia, The New Jersey Star-Ledger

"Everything that makes the theater absorbing is present in the George Street Playhouse production of Lee Blessing's drama A Walk in the Woods. Ethan McSweeny directs with delicacy made necessary by the filo-like layers of interpretations and personality Blessing has written into the drama. McSweeny makes unusually effective use of several moments in which silence and stillness communicate as effectively as words ... A brilliant play, powerful actors, skillful direction, evocative design – we can't ask for more than this." — Charles Paolino, Home New Tribune

THE PERSIANS
by Aeschylus, a new version by Ellen McLaughlin
National Actors Theater — May-June, 2003

"Excellent! A terrific and rare piece of theater." — Donald Lyons, The New York Post

"Timely... Relevant... Heart-wrenching ... Terrifying ... a true classic. We see the present and the future right there, inside the past. Ellen McLaughlin serves and uses The Persians with true power and grace. She is well served by the lean, stark production. Aeschylus emphasized that the gods shaped our fates. Ms McLaughlin concentrates on our own actions. Goaded by pride and greed, we invite the fate and nature to do their worst, the gods are not to blame. Director Ethan McSweeny makes each detail embody this theme." — Margo Jefferson, The New York Times

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
by John Guare
The Guthrie Theater — March-April, 2003

"What director Ethan McSweeny and his brilliant team of designers and performers have achieved with Six Degrees of Separation is magnificent. You can wait a long time to experience something like this – the Guthrie Theater's most inspired and sublime production in years."

"Director McSweeny has chosen to play Six Degrees simple, a winning choice that underscores the dualities of the play...The themes are reflected in the artistic palette here, with portals that resemble frames, with Christine Jones' simple, circular set that seems like a layer cake with a slice cut out, with Jane Cox's brilliant lighting design... All of this makes ‘Six Degrees' a harmony of colors and lights that seem like visual music."

"This Six Degrees is a lot like falling in love – except you never catch yourself as you sit in your chair at the Guthrie, but keep falling deeper, laughing all the way. Thank you McSweeny, Christine Jones, Jane Cox and the rest of your terrific team. Thank you to the performers who are so clearly in the moment and enjoying themselves in this production, which is one for the theater history books." — Rohan Preston, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Great theater is worth revisiting. For proof, see the Guthrie Theater's engaging production of Six Degrees of Separation, a 13-year-old play that already bears the trappings of a superb period piece. When I first saw the show 12 years ago I was struck by its power as a statement about black and white, rich and poor. Now, it stands as a moving, almost cautionary tale about failure and redemption, and how we create genuine meaning in our lives. The layers of connection, privilege, and lack are still there, of course, mined beautifully in director Ethan McSweeny's production. But, like all good theater, the play presents its themes subtly enough for us to discover them for ourselves and interpret them intimately." — Carolyn Petrie, St. Paul Pioneer Press

DIRTY BLONDE
by Claudia Shear
George Street Playhouse/Wilma Theatre — September-November, 2002

"Perceptive and deeply moving...Mr. McSweeny, whose insight and flair – theatrical and in this case cinematic – appear boundless, adorns the star segments with onscreen moments that are sure to create Mae West converts among the audience. [He] fuses the play's parallel plot lines into a seamless whole. More than in the original staging of the Ms. Shear's play, Mr. McSweeny explores the depth of what often seems like a clever crowd pleaser. West's downhill slide from grandeur to self-parody is unstintingly documented, never for a cheap laugh. Everything about this Dirty Blonde comes as a surprise. — Alvin Klein, The New York Times

THIEF RIVER
by Lee Blessing
The Guthrie Theater — February-March 2002

"Powerful! Their young love ripped apart by violent circumstances, Gil and Ray spend much of the rest of their lives missing each other in Lee Blessing's Thief River. At the end the young couple and their older versions share the stage simultaneously in a tremendously moving tableau, the poignancy of which is heightened by a powerful final effect – pages of letters falling like snow." — Claude Peck, Minneapolis Star Tribune

CTRL+ALT+DELETE
by Anthony Clarvoe
George Street Playhouse — March-April, 2002

"Cinematic... Crafty plot twists...Delightful surprises! From the first sleek second the play is a whir of fast-forward motion. Mr. McSweeny is an interpretive whiz who knows how to elicit the best in play and players. — Alvin Klein, The New York Times

"Don't be surprised if Clarvoe's serious comedy about serious money becomes another New Jersey-to-New York Wall Street smash. It's a much better portrait of the business world and contains more funny lines than Neil Simon gave his comedies in his prime. Director Ethan McSweeny has whipped his production into a lightning-fast pace, and sure found the right actors to perform it. The result is the edgiest, hippest show that George Street has ever attempted." — Peter Filicia, The New Jersey Star Ledger

"The subtle fury of the play's narrative is acutely accented by McSweeny's crisp staging." — Robert L. Daniels, Variety

OLD TIMES
by Harold Pinter
George Street Playhouse — March-April, 2001

"Ethan McSweeny has a lucid grasp of the elusive Pinter style, and the George Street production is remarkably accessible, free of affectations. Mr. McSweeny appears more interested in the gaze – a word Mr. Pinter emphasizes in his text – than in the pause. Precisely timed gazes and glances of three excellent actors exude dramatic tension beyond explanation into the sheerly experiential." — Alvin Klein, The New York Times

"In Ethan McSweeny's excellent new production, the characters peel off each other's emotions as if they're layers of skin, ever so slowly. That's the more thorough and painful way. McSweeny recently signed on as associate artistic director at he playhouse, where he'll stage a play a year. Here's hoping that each of his productions will be as potent as this one." — Peter Filicia, The New Jersey Star-Ledger

WIT
by Margaret Edson
Pittsburgh Public Theatre — November-December, 2000

"Lisa Harrow [gives] a performance that is towering, impish, growling, and relentlessly noholds- barred...[Harrow's Vivian Bearing] is human granite. But gradually the cancer and its treatment wear her down. And a marvelous thing happens: Harrow's hurricane force diminished, she turns out to be even more effective reduced to solitary weakness, indecision, and human need. Though Harrow seems a force of self-generating nature, director Ethan McSweeny must have had a lot to do with sculpting her performance. He orchestrates beautiful support, both in acting and design." — Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Director Ethan McSweeny's staging clarifies the links between Donne's poetry and Edson's clinicians. His steady hand holds the show together, knowing instinctively when to slow the pace to a near standstill and when to ratchet up the tension and stride. Much credit goes to set designer Mark Wendland and lighting designer Frances Aronson for their ability to transform a single playing space into a seamless series of laboratories, classrooms, hospital rooms, and offices. The clinical setting is enhanced by the best use of the auditorium's back wall since the O'Reilly was inaugurated." — Alice T. Carter, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

THE BEST MAN
by Gore Vidal
The Virginia Theatre — September-January, 2000/1
"This play makes you wish that Vidal were writing the dialogue for the Presidential debates. You can sense from the audiences laughter that some of the play's lines are sure to be repeated at cocktail parties this election season."
— Ben Brantley, The New York Times

"A sophisticated, elegant, and damnably entertaining play." — John Lahr, The New Yorker

"Beautifully acted and fast-paced, with effervescent, sparkling dialogue, The Best Man is fun! Vote for Vidal!" — Clive Barnes, New York Post

"A superb cast! McSweeny mines the play for all its drama and humor, using effective theatrical touches to convey the political and journalistic hysteria surrounding the process. Adding further verisimilitude is the voice of Walter Cronkite as a news commentator; the return of his reassuring tone is a vivid reminder of what we've been missing for several years." — Frank Bobeck, The Hollywood Reporter

"Wonderful entertainment, smart sexy and compelling, with blistering and fantastically prescient observations, it couldn't be more timely." — Liz Smith, Newsday

SIDE MAN
by Warren Leight
The Guthrie Theater — May, 2000

"The Guthrie's production of this audience pleaser has almost everything going for it. Director Ethan McSweeny has staged the show as a tight and melodious jam session, seamlessly moving from scene to scene...Stripes of neon light dangle over designer John Arnone's set like notes in the air...Stephanie Zimbalist's vivid, warts-and-all performance helps keep it real...the Guthrie's triumverate of great male character actors – Stephen Pelinksi, Stephen Yoakum, and Richard Iglewski – are great to watch." — Carolyn Petrie, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE
by Martin McDonagh
The Alley Theatre — January-February, 1999

"Fiercely effective! Ethan McSweeny has directed the Alley's production with steady pace and sensitivity to the play's shifting moods. [The production] restores – or for those who never cease believing, re-confimrs – faith in theater as a vibrant art form." — Everett Evans, The Houston Chronicle

"A rich and luscious addition to Houston's theatrical season! [The play's] disparate elements are brought into focus with Ethan McSweeny's intelligent and seamless direction and with Kevin Rigdon's heartbreaking set." — Lee Williams, Houston Press

GROSS INDECENCY
by Moises Kaufmann
The Guthrie Theater — November, 1998

"There's a moment in Gross Indecency when the famous writer's glibness betrays him on the witness stand. Asked by the prosecutor if he had ever kissed a particular young man, Wilde says no: the fellow was too ugly. Then, in a chillingly effective piece of staging, the eight other men in the courtroom rise in unison, leaning in silent disbelief and indictment ... McSweeny makes the audience the jury, staging the court-room action between two banks of bleacher-style seats and using the whole venue, including the aisles, to make the drama immediate." — Rohan Preston, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

HYDRIOTAPHIA, OR THE DEATH OF DR. BROWNE
by Tony Kushner
Berkeley Repertory Theater — September-October, 1998

"Not quite a major work, but far from a minor one, ‘Hydriotaphia' shows off its author's dazzling intellect, wit, and ambition to richly enjoyable effect. Certainly a better production couldn't be asked for than director Ethan McSweeny's. He does a brilliant job negotiating so many complex textual demands, and heroically creates a sense of constant activity that nearly hides the work's one-set, sickbed-focused physical stasis. The set is excellent, topped by [Jonathan] Hadary's conniving yet pitiable Browne." — Dennis Harvey, Variety

MAD ABOUT THE BARD
conceived by Floyd King and Ethan McSweeny
Folger Theatre — May, 1998

"King and director Ethan McSweeny have strung together Shakespearean parodies, reminiscences and songs by a variety of authors ... McSweeny pulls the evening's disparate elements into a graceful whole. And he has worked closely with [set designer Dan] Conway and lighting designer Howell Binkley to ensure that the show takes place in a wonderful space." — Lloyd Rose, The Washington Post

THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE
by Pierre Marivaux, translated by Stephen Wadsworth
Washington Shakespeare Company — January-February 1998

"Having chilled spines in Never the Sinner, director Ethan McSweeny now proceeds to tickle fancies with a delightful production of Pierre Marivaux's ‘The Triumph of Love.' It's svelte, civilized entertainment, wittily designed and buoyantly acted." — Lloyd Rose, The Washington Post

"As in McSweeny's recent staging of the equivalently scattered Leopold and Loeb opus Never the Sinner for Signature Theatre, the directorial emphasis on focus – both visual and thematic – is remarkable...Though the stage is wide open – a neat mix of modernist design and classical elements so fractured they appear to have barely survived an earthquake – your eye is forever being drawn to certain spots just before characters arrive at them...Marivaux may have been lampooning the rigidity of thought of the Enlightenment, but McSweeny has found ways for him to so while adhering to all the rules." — Bob Mondello, Washington City Paper

NEVER THE SINNER
by John Logan
John Houseman Theater — January-May 1998
American Jewish Theater — December - January 1997/8
Signature Theater, Washington, DC — September-October 1997

"In John Logan's remarkable play, Clarence Darrow tells a judge that Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, who murdered a 14-year-old boy in 1924 were "much like all of us." The emotion and intellectual force of the production owes as much to the direction of Ethan McSweeny and his cast as to the author. The secret of its power in Mr. McSweeny's handling of it is a rejection of sensationalism in presenting one of the most sensational crimes of the 1920's. The cast is up to the formidable demands Mr. McSweeny makes on it for adroitness." — D. J. R. Bruckner, The New York Times

"A great evening of theatre...One of the year's best! An excellent and compelling play...The present production could hardly be bettered – Ethan McSweeny's hairtriggered staging takes the play and runs with it. Enthralling and exceptional!" — Clive Barnes, The New York Post

"Ethan McSweeny's crisp, intelligent staging gives the play a resonance that could well echo today's headlines...As the destructive neurotics bonded in a purposeless crime, Solomon and Bowcutt offer a tandem tour de force...The re-enactment of the murder and the disposal of the boy's body is chilling, and it is followed by a victorious of death to the strains of ‘After You've Gone' that is positively numbing." — Robert L. Daniels, Variety

"Sinner is a winner! Explosive, hypnotic, timely, fascinating. A superb production. On its own, the play could have a merely documentary feel. But Ethan McSweeny's superb production unfolds with a hypnotic rhythm." — Fintan O'Toole, New York Daily News

"John Logan's Never the Sinner is a theatrical whirlwind! Two stunning leading performances by Jason Bowcutt and Michael Solomon and amazingly inventive direction by Ethan McSweeny." — Dennis Cunningham, CBS-TV

"Sexy, psychologically compelling and visually striking." — Bill Stevenson, Entertainment Weekly

"Riveting! A taut, passionate psycho-sexual waltz." — Michael Sommers, Newhouse Newspapers

"McSweeny more or less treats the play as if it were a snake and himself and the audience the hypnotized rabbits...McSweeny not only gives it theatrical vibrancy with his mannered but taut direction, he fills it out with his own uneasy, ambivalent reaction to the material. McSweeny has for several seasons been an assistant director to the Shakespeare Theater's Michael Kahn, and no doubt learned some of his impressive visual technique from him. But a director can't be taught to how to fuse with a script like this, so that his own reaction becomes part of the drama. The fashion in today's theater is to bully an audience, shake it up, or at least, stare it down. But McSweeny is with the audience, mesmerized by the awful mystery at the heart of this material." — Lloyd Rose, The Washington Post