“A triumph”
Fabienne Darge, Le Monde
“A creation of a new myth”
Michel Vinaver, La Gazette Jaune
“Post-modern perfection”
Helen Shaw, Time Out New York
“You won’t find many other theater pieces in New York that are as challenging as A.W.O.L, and that’s a shame.”
Adam Klasfeld, Theater Mania
“Her translation of Koltès now sounds like Dante speaking in the voice of Sam Sheppard”
D.J. R. Bruckner, New York Times
“a deeply ambitious project, offering new staging by young directors. It is rare to have such a well-focused collective effort downtown, and it may make a useful blueprint. »
Tom Sellar, Village Voice
“In a global culture where history still -- too often -- takes on the yoke of inevitability, and both documentary and fictional texts strain under the weight of narrow imperatives, Irina Patkanian's mixed media works, grounded in their passion for the human story, trace the freedoms of human imagination. Part memoirist, part essayist, part auteur, Patkanian's aesthetic of identity mixes fact and fiction, poetry and history, moving and still image, musical phrase and the spoken word to discover in discrete human circumstance -- of war, of birth, of language, of love -- the mysterious ways of making meaning by which imagination survives into the present, and invents new form. Her interdisciplinarity is in the best sense wayward: unpredictable, curious, alert to surprise; as full of delight and humor as of pathos. Stirring us to the edge of our own understanding, her intimate and cosmopolitan eye is a storyteller's gift to each of us.”
Julie Aggos (Creative Achievement award at BC/CUNY)
“Patkanian delivers a compelling and compassionate inquiry into the consequences of entrusting ourselves to the care of others.”
Nicco Pandolfi, PULP
“The film is revelatory, providing a graphic and forceful description of the changes in Russian society from within a small community.”
Grahame Weinbren, Millennium Film Journal
“A particularly funny scene stands out in which the filmmaker mentally links together her idea of America as a nation obsessed with happiness to the popularity of happy meals, happy hour and the happy endings.’
Kim Stanton, Films Media Group
“important and beautiful work creating a piece of theatre that broadens our understanding and definition of how theatre should look, sound and feel."
"magnetic ritual quality"
Carol MacVey, Theater Director
" It’s an extraordinary piece"
“Music was wonderful and at times gorgeous.”
“A unique theatrical experience.”
Alan MacVey, Director, Performing Arts. Chair, Theatre Arts Dpt