"Kacser strikes me as a first-rate actress, highly believable, linguistically and otherwise, as a British woman of another era... . See it if: You enjoy watching a talented actress act."
-- Chris Swanson, Washington City Paper Fringe & Purge, July 24, 2010 (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/fringe/2010/07/24/hip-shot-2-reprises/)
"Rose Jennings is a London shopgirl who lives in the same rooming house as Lessing during the time immediately following the second War. Kacser, who adapted the script from Lessing’s book, puts on the character of Rose, talking to Lessing (who is played by the audience). She is in the throes of a singularly unpromising romance with a local tobacconist, and they have separated because Rose has hinted too strongly at the desirability of marriage. Rose spends much of her time regaling Lessing with stories about her efforts to win her beloved back by making him jealous. She devotes the whole of her consciousness to this struggle, which ranges from buying her cigarettes from a kiosk instead of from him to making out with a policeman. As she struggles to land her fish, we realize that she will be married, if at all, briefly and unhappily; and the cheerier Rose becomes, the more doomed the relationship seems. ...
"Kacser has polished what was already a spot-on character study. The story is more personal and less political than I remember it being four years ago, although Rose’s piquant observation that we all seemed to care more for each other during the war than we do once free from its clutches is still intact. At the end, we are invited to sing “Lily Marlene” (Hans Leip and Norbert Schultze), surely one of the world’s most singable songs (in the earlier version, Rose sang it). Rose is a marvelous piece – a sharply, subtly observed character study placed in a very specific point in time. ...
superb."
-- Tim Treanor, DC Theatre Scene, July 24, 2010 (http://dctheatrescene.com/2010/07/24/2-reprises-in-pursuit-of-the-english-rose-and-disorder/).jpg)
Photo of Hilary Kacser as Rose in
"In Pursuit of the English"
by John Aaron
Read more rave reviews. http://2reprises.blogspot.com/2010/05/reviews-from-july-2010-capital-fringe.html Click here for Video.
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