Los Angeles Times - Recommended
"...Developed in collaboration with Bridel, the recently appointed dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts, this latest production is an adventurous - and distinctly creepy - departure from Four Clowns' stylistic signature. For one thing, the piece doesn't entail clowning per se, although its focus on the depiction of emotional states ingeniously leverages the troupe's highly physical performance skills."
Broadway World - Highly Recommended
"...Four Clowns' world premiere of playwright David Bridel's LUNATICS & ACTORS wonderfully succeeds as a loving spoof of the acting process. It's to the credit of all involved that what could have been a five-minute Saturday Night Live skit has evolved into 70 minutes of enthralling wit and engaging artistry. Bad acting's truly an art; and to make the bad acting funny, genius!"
Edge - Recommended
"...What an odd -- if entertaining -- show Four Clowns Productions have given us in their latest insanity: "Lunatics & Actors". Combining fact-based information on the ground-breaking work of 19th Century French neurologist, Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (1806-1875), and today's acting techniques, writer David Bridel and director Jeremy Aluma have concocted a silly but fun show."
Examiner - Recommended
"...What the play is lacking is the realization that the physical manifestation of an expression could be separate from the actual feeling. If anything this play can be the center piece of a lively discourse for actors of the conflicting acting schools of thought and also the psychological questions presented in Shakespeare's ultimate exploration of a troubled mind, Hamlet. "Acting is reacting." "Acting is in the moment." "Acting is emotional memory." Stanislavski, the grandfather of acting, according to Sonia Moore in her book "The Stanislavski System" second revised edition page 44, "felt that forcing emotions from the emotional memory brought actors to inner hysteria." "Lunatics & Actors" may bring the audience to assume Stanislavski was right or not."
Night Tinted Glasses - Highly Recommended
"...Again, I don't want to spoil the performance, but I can promise a intriguing odyssey on many levels -- some emotional, others artistic (along with one of the most interesting performances of Hamlet you're ever likely to see) and many philosophical. Philosophy such as metaphysics, as well as epistemology, and yes, ethics. All of it startling, sometimes chilling, very often funny, frequently disturbing and for nearly every single second compelling."
Observations Along the Road - Recommended
"...In Lunatics & Actors, Duchenne (Thaddeus Shafer (FB; FB (page))) is presenting the audience with a simple question: what is authentic emotion? Can a highly skilled trained actor produce authentic emotion? Can the skills of the actor surpass the real emotion induced through electrostimulation? In asking these questions, the production induces a different set of question in the audience. Namely, it raises the question of whether any of the emotions that we might see on stage or screen are real, or even realistic portrayal. Is the entire history of theatrical entertainment just an artifice, a facade of fake emotion? If it is, are we better off going out and experiencing real emotion?"
Backscatter - Recommended
"...There are inside jokes aplenty within the world of the play. Theatre in Los Angeles is considered the domain of the insane. Are the three inmates victims of an unscrupulous workshop-monger? Bridel is the incoming Dean of Theatre at USC. Does this foreshadow his plans for the school? Perhaps only artists can or will get the full scope of it. But, the promise and threat of machines has been a staple of storytelling from 'Frankenstein' to 'Blade Runner' and beyond. Can we controlled by electrodes? Yes but we're attached enough to our screens to make such a physical connection unnecessary."
Stage Raw - Recommended
"...Lunatics & Actors, the latest world premiere by Jeremy Aluma's clowning troupe Four Clowns, is less a fixed narrative than a series of funny, unpredictable, and menacing vignettes that excavate the distinction between creative performance and insanity. Playwright David Bridel, dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts, has crafted a meta-theatrical meditation that perhaps inevitably turns to Hamlet as it considers the origin of human emotion and its authentic portrayal onstage."
Theatre Notes - Highly Recommended
"...Lunatics & Actors, under the astute direction of Jeremy Aluma, is innovative theatre at its very best, entertaining and thought provoking. It has a short run of only twelve performances, fewer depending on when a reader sees this. It closes on May 28 at the Shakespeare Center. With ticket prices an amazing $12-15 (what you would pay for a seat at the Arclight), there is no excuse for missing this show."
Discover Hollywood - Highly Recommended
"...Four Clowns presentation of David Bridel's new play Lunatics & Actors now playing at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles is one of those performances you experience. I can't tell you too much or I will spoil it so this will have to be more of an impressionistic review. I'll start with WOW."
Theatre Ghost - Recommended
"...Four Clowns has won an enviable reputation for taking the skills of clowning and building new kinds of storytelling from the oldest of theatricks. Lunatics and Actors extends this work with a lively amusement that entertains the mind as well. It also takes us where the best clowning goes - to places where we hide things."
Colorado Boulevard - Recommended
"...Lunatics & Actors seems intent on putting our feet to the fire and asking us if we're really doing so, or are we, as an audience, as a modern people, phoning it in? Are we content to binge watch Netflix or yell at a Facebook political video while ignoring the highs and lows of our own, potentially rich, lives? This could be reaching further than the writers and performers intend to go, but any production that provokes such rich questions is worth thinking about deeply."
USC Annenberg Media - Highly Recommended
"...Forget about the floppy shoes and red noses that the theatre company's name, Four Clowns, might suggest. Instead, their latest production, "Lunatics & Actors" - directed by Jeremy Aluma and written by David Bridel, newly-appointed dean of USC's School of Dramatic Arts - explores the mysterious experiments of Dr. Duchenne de Boulogne. Dark and hilarious, a night with the doctor is not one that you will soon forget."
On Stage and Screen - Recommended
"...Four Clowns is known for creating productions that reexamine the relationship between the performers and the audience, and this play was no exception. Whether or not you always want to be, you are very much a part of the story, and you'll probably pause for a second to contemplate next time you find yourself swept up in a strong emotion."
Signal Tribune - Recommended
"...Breaking the fourth wall is typically used to create comedic tension, something Four Clowns uses to its advantage. This technique allows the marriage of sinister and lightheartedness to take place on stage, keeping the audience squirming from entertainment and uneasiness."
The Los Angeles Beat - Highly Recommended
"..."Lunatics and Actors" runs on Fridays and Saturdays through May 28 and you would be a crazy person to miss this ninety minute roller coaster/fun house in the flesh. Be forewarned that if someone rings a bell in the following few days you might start salivating. Produced by Four Clowns repertory theater and Clown school in Association with the Shakespeare Center Of Los Angeles."
University Times - Highly Recommended
"...In the end, the main goal of Lunatics and Actors was to spur discussion about the emotional authenticity of an actor and what "authenticity" even means. The Four Clowns company certainly accomplished their mission."
