Press for Conversation
Chosen as “Fest Bet” by the Philadelphia City Paper!
A staff pick at the Philadelphia Weekly!
A “Fringe Pick” in the Philadelphia METRO!
“Clements’s absorbing meditation on verbal communication in all its forms was endearingly presented as a class on the “perfect conversation.” …Under Director Rosalie Purvis, Clements skillfully shepherded her performance from monologue to revealing audience participation, drawing out ticket holders on sledding in Boston, dissecting frogs, and biking to work. Her disarming and intriguing questions on spur-of-the-moment participants’ favorite things and the things they most regret gave the show an intimate, free-flowing feel which also encompassed the dark side of words as “small acts of violence”. Clements dexterously handled the repercussions of her probing among the audience, bringing her own vulnerabilities. Her reflections on the flaws of conversation as a medium of reparations are particularly poignant. She examines the calibrated give-and-take of verbal reconciliations – and their failure when emotional intentions inevitably diverge. Conversation, despite its bare-bones feel and the challenge of lighting a cluttered basement room, proved the most absorbing experience I’ve had so far at this year’s Fringe.”
- Alaina Mabaso, Philadelphia Edge
“Funny, inventive and a little bit interactive, the lessons in Conversation ring true as as often as they ring nutso. A show worth talking about.”
- Patrick Rapa, Philadelphia City Paper
“New York-based writer/performer/pamphleteer Alexis Clements has spent the last few years having a conversation with herself about the ways we all have conversations with each other. Driven by her nagging curiosity about one of life’s little fundamental paradoxes—why something as seemingly straightforward as everyday social interaction results in so much complexity, anxiety and confusion—Clements has created a one-woman ‘mash-up between a lecture, an old-school, character-based, performance-art piece and a literal conversation.’”
-K. Ross Hoffman for the “Fest Bets” in the Philadelphia City Paper
“And after one workshop performance, the conceit made its way into a real conversation. ‘This one pair of friends were so into some of the ideas in the show,’ says Alexis, ‘they went to a bar afterwards and tried to chart the conversation they were having on a bar napkin. The next day the woman who did that scanned the bar napkin and sent it to me. That’s what every artist hopes for, is that the work isn’t some thing you look at and just walk away from.’”
—Nick Gilewicz, on the Live Arts & Philly Fringe blog. Read the full story here.
Read the interview in New York Theater Review with Alexis Clements about the show.
Information for the Media
For interviews and more information about the show, please contact us at:
contact AT theconversationbegins.org
Press for past actio/reactio shows
“Cleverly constructed and exceedingly well performed, this smashing little play by Alexis Clements teases out a near-future world where everything is controlled by an unseen, all-beneficent company… The balance of power shifts and moves subtly between the two under Sarah Norman’s precise and perceptive direction.”
—Thom Dibdin, The Stage, on actio/reactio’s 2006 Edinburgh production of Alexis Clements’ The Interview
“Skilfully executed, with humour and self-depreciation…finely played by Katharine Peachey and Tom Foster.”
—Ed Witcomb, SkinnyFEST, on actio/reactio’s 2006 Edinburgh production of Alexis Clements’ The Interview
“Oh, this show is so Fringe. Two people, a man and a woman (called Man and Woman) in a white space. An interview is happening but who is interviewing whom? And what sort of a Kafkaesque world is this?…Sarah Norman’s tight direction kept it lively and…the performances make it worth an hour of anyone’s time.”
—Victor Hallett, OnStageScotland.com, on actio/reactio’s 2006 Edinburgh production of Alexis Clements’ The Interview
“File this under the Only In New York category: the first issue of New Acquisition, a literary pamphlet (that’s also online). This issue is all about apocalyptical goings-on, and has got a deadpan essay by Alexis Clements called “Your Own Personal Apocalypse” and a funny, tongue-in-cheek poem by Beth Royer called “Sure Signs of the Apocalypse.” If you are in NYC, check out the New Acquisition performances that seem to combine readings, videos, artwork and chicken farming. Yes, that’s right. Chicken farming.”
—Minus Spine
