Washington Post - Somewhat Recommended
"...The structure of "Walter Cronkite Is Dead"-an allusion to the late, widely respected anchorman and the sense that Americans collectively had more cultural touchstones once upon a time-requires Margaret and Patty to circle each other and eventually find a common landing strip. Where their sensibilities converge in the sterile cafe, conjured with utilitarian aptitude by set designer James Kronzer, is in the trials of motherhood."
Washington Examiner - Recommended
"...
It only makes sense that eventually he'll make them switch places, having Robinette spill stream-of-consciousness stuff about her Kennedy-filled dreams while Edelen wonders with her eyes if her neighbor has fallen to travel psychosis. But the reversal still feels like a revelation when it happens. When these travelers are finally freed, they may be on their way to cramped coach seats and oversalted TV dinners, but we emerge convinced their worlds have broadened. The thing works better as a showcase for two bravura performers than as a quiet parable for these very loud times, but it works, is the main thing."
Variety - Recommended
"...Calarco, currently an artistic associate at Signature, is a seasoned director with more limited experience as a playwright ("Shakespeare's R&J"). Both talents are on display in this piece specifically written for busy D.C.-based actors Nancy Robinette and Sherry L. Edelen. Calarco the writer demonstrates impressive maturity with his lively and insightful dialogue, while as a director, he gets maximum mileage from subtle glances and flares of contempt."
DCist - Recommended
"...As a story, there's not much here. It's just a slice of two lives, slowly revealed over a few too many glasses of wine and revelations that are sometimes a little too candid. But Calarco makes the most of the slight structure, maintaining interest in the characters through more complexity than such a brief comedy should allow. Refusing to bow to stereotypes, he makes each of them, at various points, sympathetic, annoying, appealing and pathetic. They may start as recognizable political/cultural types, but they end up simply and recognizably human."
MetroWeekly - Highly Recommended
"...But Joe Calarco's play is far more than a tale of opposites in close quarters and its comedy does not seek to make an imbecile of either woman. Instead, Cronkite expertly unspools two very different stories not to pick at where they conflict, but instead to lay bare where they closely align."
Talkin Broadway - Recommended
"...If all a viewer wants is to spend 90 minutes in the company of two of the Washington area's best-loved actresses, Walter Cronkite is Dead, receiving its world premiere in the ARK Theatre at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, provides that opportunity. As to whether the work offers dramatic action worthy of Nancy Robinette (recipient of five Helen Hayes Awards) and Sherri L. Edelen (who has received two of the awards): They talk ... and talk ... and talk ... a lot."
Washington City Paper - Somewhat Recommended
"...As a meditation on a world grown coarse and confrontational, Walter Cronkite Is Dead (note the it-was-better-then lament built into the title) feels like a not-quite-finished product—like a series of confident authorial acrobatics in the service of a notion, not a series of scenes deployed in the service of a completed thought. As a vehicle written expressly for two of the area’s most beloved performers, it’s something else entirely."
Washington Times - Recommended
"...This is a good play, though, not a great one. First of all, it’s tough to believe that Margaret and Patty could ultimately become pals, at least one degree removed—at least as hard as imagining Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter partying hearty together with a night out on the town. Margaret, like any good East Coaster, can’t resist condescending to one of the “great unwashed” who lives in America’s center. And Patty, sensing this all along, can’t help but blow up at Margaret’s lack of patriotism, particularly when Patty’s family has already paid a price for hers."
Arlington Connection - Recommended
"...Whether you consider this a comedy with plenty of dramatic developments or a drama with plenty of comic moments, "Walter Cronkite is Dead" is a thoroughly satisfying evening of theater, especially when performed by Robinette and Edelen. But, then, these two could probably make any property seem satisfying. "
Fairfax Times - Highly Recommended
"...The fun begins as we watch these two gals, an odd couple for sure, try to make the best of this forced encounter. Margaret, impeccably clad in a tailored suit, is already seated, reading and nursing a white wine in silent self-absorption, when chatterbox Patty bursts jarringly onto the scene, wearing a denim jacket, fanny pack, sweatpants and sneakers."
DramaUrge - Highly Recommended
"...If hell is other people, as Sartre notes, then the two characters in Joe Calarco's play Walter Cronkite is Dead - thrown together by fate - are about to experience an aspect of eternity during a weather delay at Reagan International. Now receiving its world premiere at Signature Theatre (to 12/26), Cronkite takes a hard and funny look at the underside of human nature and comes away with the view that first impressions are the wrong ones; disparate souls are often just plain folks, the same as you and me."
Alexandria Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...Walter Cronkite is Dead made me nostalgic for the brilliant writing and acting in the old sitcom “The Golden Girls” with its weekly life lessons in men, children, politics and sex after age 50. And though there are no more seasoned actors than Edelen and Robinette, the comedy here feels strained, as their characters in turn point out each other’s faults and pat each other on the back in dizzying fashion."
Curtain Up - Somewhat Recommended
"...While amusing in parts, Walter Cronkite Is Dead doesn't go far enough in exploring the real conflicts embedded in each woman's psyche. Playwright Calarco whose In The Absence of Spring, a prescient pre-9/11play about an apocalyptic New York, still resonates a decade after I saw it, is capable of delving deeply into his themes. This piece, however, never gets off the ground. "
DCTheatreScene - Recommended
... the script is stripped of the sort of tiresome, middlebrow punditry that permeates what we now let pass for primetime info-tainment. With rare exception, Calarco’s show steps nimbly around the pitfalls of ersatz stage politicking and sticks to its belief in a stranger theory: that people do, occasionally, listen to each other.
