New Guidelines for Peaceful Times Reviews
DC Theater Arts- Recommended
"...The Spooky Action production of New Guidelines for Peaceful Times provides for a willing audience to live with the characters in a world built on quicksand. Under Alves’ fine touch, the Spooky Action audience has an opportunity to put itself in the shoes of another, whether an uncertain bureaucrat with a past and no clear directions from above or a stranger knocking on a door looking for shelter and safety. There is plenty to ponder."
MD Theatre Guide- Recommended
"...Directed by Roberta Alves, this is a thoughtful show that is very quiet but leaves you with much to think and talk about. And in a time in American politics when immigration is again such a flashpoint, and there is such desperate need in the world, the questions it poses are real. So yes, theatre does impact the real world."
DCTheatreScene- Highly Recommended
"...New Guidelines, written by Bosco Brasil and making its US debut at Spooky Action, is a dialogue-heavy rumination on many things and that dialogue, so well written, frames a near effortless tension, which is further constructed and held taut, gracefully, by Darnall and Saldaña. Darnall (one of DC’s best, in my opinion) exudes the quiet confusion of a (new) man in a strange land, struggling with language to make an eloquent case for himself. That Clausewitz was an actor before—who once delivered impassioned soliloquies in his native language that moved audiences—sharpens his struggle, as he stammers through his war experiences using only a chair as prop to paint images of imprisonment and murder. He understands words and their impact on people, including Segismundo who he must reach if he is to stay in Brazil."
BroadwayWorld- Recommended
"..."New Guidelines for Peaceful Times" shows the power of theater in both illuminating such issues, and the ultimate effect the art form can have on all our lives."