Washington Post - Recommended
"...The depth of acting talent here is a decided bonus. Actors such as Fox and Lee, with their wealth of experience in Wilson's canon, have the full tool belts for Gardley's often elevated language. Ireland brings an apt country gruffness to Stoker, and Dirden, as a teenager eager to taste adventure and urbanity, offers his usual high caliber of authenticity."
Washington Examiner - Recommended
"...Director Kenny Leon skillfully keeps the play moving smoothly, its Biblical and nature references richly illuminating the text. In the second act there are two musical numbers that stand out. The first is a spiritual sung to Mother Sister by the extremely talented Hurlbert. The second is a heart-stopping number delivered with power and depth of feeling by Rashad."
Variety - Recommended
"...Under Leon's direction, the story weaves elements of reality and make-believe in a manner that toys with the audience until a jarring climax attempts to bring home the message. Yet the suspended belief dictated by the plot tends to rob the play of the full impact presumably sought by the playwright. Set designer Tom Lynch provides the bare elements to suggest the varying locales depicted."
MetroWeekly - Highly Recommended
"...every tongue confess defies easy categorization because it boldly and unashamedly straddles two worlds. It is, without question, a strongly devised piece of theater that can be admired for its creator's understanding of what it is to write an intelligent and thought-provoking work. But it is also a play that one can allow to simply wash over them, firm in the knowledge that Gardley will safely bring us home."
WeLoveDC - Highly Recommended
"...If Arena Stage was aiming for the feeling of incubation and development for their “new play” stage, they hit it on the dot. They also hit the target with the show they commissioned to be Kogod Cradle’s first play: “Every Tongue Confess” by awarding winning playwright and poet Marcus Gardley. The show embodies the works that we should expect to find at the Cradle: new, bold, and ambitious plays that explore new avenues of story telling."
Talkin Broadway - Recommended
"...Through incantatory language and an overall sense of heightened reality, Gardley shows the recurrence of certain themes: difficult relationships between lovers of different races; people wanting to transcend their skin color and concentrate on their interior qualities (one character asks, "Don't you wish we were all the color of water?"); and children traumatized by witnessing acts of violence."
Washington City Paper - Recommended
"...There are rich things embedded in the script—stage directions as urgently poetic as the best of the dialogue; a poplar tree, specified as a stage-design element, to evoke the dying fall of “Strange Fruit”—that deserve the exploration and the celebration a better-pruned second production will give them. And those ambitions, to get back to something that’s too important to leave in another writer’s mouth, certainly are spectacular. Gardley is the kind of playwright Molly Smith and Arena Stage built their new Kogod Cradle for: young, gifted, and brave."
Washingtonian - Highly Recommended
"...Leon has gathered a stellar cast, and the show at its best is luminous. Rashad delivers a mesmerizing performance as the frosty reverend who thaws when she realizes God has sent her a miracle in human form (played by Jonathan Peck as Blacksmith). The three church worshippers switch into different roles effortlessly, and Autumn Hurlbert shines as Benny, literally struck dumb by grief and guilt. The bare-bones set is illuminated by clever staging effects, though flickering images of flames in the second act edge tend toward cliché."
Afro - Highly Recommended
"...The cast’s chemistry radiated from the stage, with Rashad and Peck’s characters presenting some of the most powerful moments on stage. Autumn Hurlbert’s vocal performance was surprising and refreshing, while Ireland convincingly portrayed the dour Stroker Pride."
TheaterMania - Recommended
"...Gardley weaves in and out of these tales in nonlinear fashion, as reality and myth flow into each other. Solidly straddling both planes are Rashad and Dirden, who create a relationship that transcends the limitations of Gardley's underwritten characters. Rashad combines a motherly intensity with an ethereal serenity -- a marvelous mixture that provides emotional heat and laughter almost simultaneously. Moreover, in a play full of Biblical allegory and mysticism, Rashad's work stands out as particularly hypnotic as her preacher comes to understand that God has sent her a rare gift."
Washington Informer - Recommended
"...Gardley blends what some label “ancient realism” with Biblical allegory and the news headlines surrounding the real case, to uncover the hidden truth behind the fires and denizens of Boligee. Gardley succeeds at introducing Southern realism, with all of its rumor and fantasy intact, to audiences. The cycles of the moon and mysticism operate in day-to-day life, including the church. Strangers and ghosts appear and disappear and become as worrisome to Boligee as the real people."
DCTheatreScene - Recommended
Myths and miracles are part of the everyday fabric of Boligee, Alabama. As three faithful—and gossipy—churchgoers (the excellent Crystal Fox, Eugene Lee, and E. Roger Mitchell) face the fiery furnace, they use what could well be their last moments on earth to sift through recollections and perceptions and present theories as to who is setting churches on fire and why.
