Los Angeles Times - Recommended
"...The Los Angeles premiere of 2007 Pulitzer finalist "Bulrusher," presented by Skylight Theatre Company and Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble, is a sometimes undisciplined outpouring that can frustrate and fascinate in equal measure. Nevertheless, director Nataki Garrett's precisely rendered staging of Eisa Davis' flawed but remarkable play unfolds with a mesmeric leisureliness, taking on the power and potency of myth."
LA Weekly - Recommended
"...Despite its flaws, Bulrusher is a reminder that while more than half a century has passed, race relations have remained strained even six decades later. Bulrusher reads fortunes. If she were alive today, would she foretell black men still being brutalized, their blood still running in the streets, 60 years from now?"
Broadway World - Recommended
"...A trio of strong female performances anchor playwright Eisa Davis' Bulrusher; an intriguing story of a mixed-raced 18-year-old with psychic powers growing up in a predominantly white 1950s California town. Not that the three male performers slack in their acting talents. The males roles don't seem to be as fully developed as the women's. They're certainly not written to elicit any empathy."
The Hollywood Reporter - Recommended
"...Despite the somewhat formulaic conception of characters, Davis imbues everyone with tangy idiosyncracies. And the well-calibrated direction of Nataki Garrett (who staged the superb, chance-taking Matrix Theater production of Neighbors), allows all the actors ample chance to establish credible specificity."
Stage Scene LA - Recommended
"...The power of live theater to transport an audience to another time, another place, while exploring and revealing the mysteries of the human heart, is made gorgeously, magically clear in Skylight Theatre Company and Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble's co-production of the Los Angeles premiere of Eisa Davis's Pulitzer Prize finalist Bulrusher."
StageHappenings.com - Recommended
"...If there's any fly-in-the-ointment it is in playwright Davis' unwillingness to commit to Bulrusher (a name suggestive of the rude name for lesbians, Bulldyke) and her sexuality, which switches in ways unreal. Also, Hana S. Kim's rough-board set, which allows for diffracted video images, is utilitarian but dull to look at, even under Derrick McDaniel's fine lighting design. Still, it's a strong play, well-produced (Racquel Lehrman and Victoria Watson of Theatre Planners), -directed, and –acted."
LifeInLA - Somewhat Recommended
"...Playing upon mythology and interspersed with elegiac poetry and striking visuals, this production has an ethereal beauty that sometimes gets mired down in the loquacious tenacity of Ms. Davis' s script. There is a lack of allowing the visuals to carry the narrative, and the sublimely subtle nuances of the story sometimes flounder in the dialogue. The words always seem to get in the way."
The Los Angeles Post - Recommended
"...The play takes place in the 1950's as Elisa Davis (playwright) takes us on a mythical journey that is nothing less than magical. It's a story of community and struggle, of survival, strength, and honesty that will touch your heart and tug at your soul."
