Washington Post - Recommended
"...This mix of the accessible and the hard-to-relate-to is also a pivotal ingredient of Kahn's staging, which, like the script, benefits from a muscular sense of the inexorable march to death. Wittily, at the start of the play, the text of a primer on the Thirty Years' War scrolls on the faux-concrete walls of Blythe R. D. Quinlan's starkly versatile set - and then abruptly fades out partway through. It's just as Wallenstein instructs us: Who cares? It's ancient history!"
DC Theater Arts - Highly Recommended
"...In its American premiere, Friedrich Schiller's Wallenstein by Shakespeare Theatre Company is a tour-de-force, surprisingly funny, sharp, and shattering. It's paired with their excellent Coriolanus in what they're calling the 'Hero/Traitor Repertory.'"
Washington Examiner - Highly Recommended
"...Kahn skillfully outlines the ups and downs of Wallenstein's behavior and that of his generals. Everywhere there are shifting acts of loyalty, betrayal and double-cross. Wallenstein is a flawed individual, but as Pinsky has written him and Pickering portrays him, he is an eminently likeable double-dealer, a man who is propelled by realistic rather than idealistic motives."
MetroWeekly - Recommended
"...Playing in rep with Coriolanus, the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Wallenstein offers another angle on a powerful military man falling fatally from grace. As extraordinary as the manic Coriolanus, albeit in a very different way, Wallenstein similarly finds he cannot reconcile his vision with the powerful realities and vagaries of the politics that dictate war. Whereas for Coriolanus it meant the end of his hope to rule Rome, for Wallenstein it means the end of a soldier's wish to settle a long and bloody war with a pact that offers him great power. This is a rich and uncompromising pair of plays; each ready to be mined for relevancies and enduring lessons and equally worth comparing for the examination of the egos and aspirations of the men at their centers."
Washington City Paper - Recommended
"...In Act 2, Wallenstein introduces us to a wan-looking urchin, a victim of the Thirty Years War. The child draws a line across his own throat with his finger, then sings one of Schiller's pieces in German. It's all mournful and ruminative, a reminder that the most celebrated warriors have oceans of blood on their hands. No one knows better than our world-weary but still charismatic anti-hero, wary to his last breath of "this grating need for greatness.""
Washingtonian - Highly Recommended
"...Bringing old-fashioned greed, narcissism, and power struggles to life on stage is hardly new territory to invade-in fact, it's as classic as it gets-but when done right, as in this show, the effect remains. "Once men have climbed the heights of greatness," Wallenstein says, " . . . the world forgets the things that got them there." It's this ever-relevant message of moral ambiguity and the gray area of heroism that comes across here. The play in and of itself promises epic results, with legendary characters, larger-than-life warfare, and even a sword fight or two for good measure, and epic results it delivers."
MD Theatre Guide - Recommended
"...The conceit behind this play's title-which has created some confusion, unfortunately-is that every family with each passing century can and should write another book for the Bible, a book (Cain tells us) that is all about families. For him the Bible is a living thing, not a rulebook or an inert stack of bound paper, and is designed to be lived not obeyed. Even if you are averse to this kind of preachifying, the portrayal of a writer's family experiencing their own small triumphs, challenges, and endings will always be the stuff of compelling theatre, as it truly is here. And although Cain roots the language and metaphor of the play in his Catholic heritage (Roundhouse has wisely provided a few pointers in the program for us outsiders), the universal themes shine through and can often leave you breathless, in tears, or both."
DCTheatreScene - Recommended
Wallenstein’s director Michael Kahn, poet laureate Robert Pinsky who adapted the original work by Schiller, and lead actor Steve Pickering, all share with the central figure of Wallenstein a sense of enormous vision, purposeful ambition, and potential greatness. Together, they have mounted a much-neglected dramatic classic to speak to today’s audience through this iconic historical character.
