Night Just Before the Forest

“A surprising work of extraordinary precision. Smith’s terse, understated delivery conjures a landscape painted in stark shades of black and bruised greys. With quiet intensity, he places Koltes’ work somewhere between ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and ‘Taxi Driver.’ It is, quite simply, a fantastic performance. The heartbeat of the narrator can be heard throbbing under every line.”

“Kevin V. Smith performs ‘Night Just Before the Forest’ like a cross between a feral animal and a mental patient. [He] uses the entirety of [the stage] in movements that are at times as poetic as classical ballet. Smith becomes a human representation of a nerve — his body long and lean, his hair cropped close, and his movements carefully choreographed in time with the dialogue.”

“[T]his evening-length solo piece about urban alienation is challenging both to perform and to watch. But Kevin V. Smith is magnetic in it—embodying anxiety and self-loathing, evoking a thoroughly disturbed Holden Caulfield calling out all those phonies. Smith’s misery is palpable and his physicality jarring.”