Press Quotes: The Pochsy Plays 1992-2005
To be in love with Pochsy, as I am, is an exquisitely perverse addiction. Karen Hines's character, with her breathlessly innocent voice, butterfly lashes, and Cupid's-bow mouth is as gorgeous as the ghost of a silent film star and as rancid as the corpse. She's like a disease you want to get in the hopes that it will purge something bigger. (Colin Thomas, The Georgia Straight)
A miracle of bitter hope... Hines has tapped into the confusion and alienation unique to our age and mined a work of gossamer charm and deadly power... Pochsy is part of the light that keeps us laughing as we plunge into the darkness. Beckett would have fallen for her. (Simon Houpt, Eye Weekly, Toronto)
Karen Hines is an astonishing artist, both as a writer and a performer. Her acid meditation on our modern confusion, narcissistic tendencies and market-driven hunger for the quick-fix comes via ...the the murky labyrinth of Pochsy’s brain. You will laugh, a lot, and Pochsy will help you be dismayed at your laugh lines.
(Liz Nicholls, Edmonton Journal)
Hilarious and harrowing... A walking, singing, dancing embodiment of designer nihilism... Her comedy has the rare ability to make you laugh while feeling queasy. (Jill Lawless, Now Magazine, Toronto)
Pochsy is a vulnerable, evocative character with the sublime, violent spirit of a cornered animal and the allure of a child. Pochsy violates the audience so sweetly you barely notice... Over the past 15 years, we’ve seen many new talents celebrated like the second coming of Christ only to disappear as soon as the media spotlight dimmed. Hines, though, is the real thing. (Denis Armstrong, Classical ’96)
Pochsy is a must-see, a blend of charm and vitriol who traipses blithely over mercury-traced waters. A master of direct address, able to entrance an audience with a simple stare, she skewers middle class aspirations and consumer obsessions with poison-tipped arrows and relentless slings.
(Christopher Winsor, Theatrum Canada)
This apocalyptic vision of Clara Bow and Betty Boop ... is the most intriguing female creation to hit the stage in a long time… (Valerie Gregory, Edmonton Sun)
Pure poetry spun smooth as silk ... Imagine Greek Tragedy by Betty Boop. (Pat Donnelly, Montreal Gazette)
Wicked, original and superb. (Denver Rocky Mountain News)
Nothing short of a miracle. I laughed. I cried. I called my friends. (Tim Walsh, Saint Paul Pioneer Press)
Press Quotes: Hello…Hello 1999-2007
Exquisitely crafted … seamlessly stylish and intellectually provocative. (Kate Taylor, Globe & Mail)
Soaring satire. Hines masterfully revitalizes clichés and perks up dialogue, while also subtly borrowing from works as diverse as La Boheme and The Gift of the Magi. **** (NOW Magazine)
The momentum and perspicacity of this inventive play is evident on the page. It is also obvious why Hines is lauded as one of the nation’s premier dramatists. (Ibi Kasick, Eye Weekly – Books)
Hines’s writing style has a seductive, lyrical quality that belies its political complexity – it’s like reading Japanese haiku and a nihilist treatise all at the same time. (Kamal Al-Solaylee, Eye Weekly)