Washington Post - Recommended
"... The show is held together by Turner’s magnetism and Ivins’s lashing quips, which, until her death from breast cancer in 2007 at 62, bubbled forth from such publications as the Texas Observer, the Dallas Times-Herald and, for an unhappy spell, the New York Times. (She also did a stint as a commentator on “60 Minutes.”) The playwrights capably curate many of Ivins’s best lines, which tend to be folksy grenades tossed directly at the colorful gang of Texas pols with whom she carried on a torrid professional love-hate relationship. Of one she saw as especially intellectually challenged, she said: “If his IQ gets any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.”"
DC Theater Arts - Highly Recommended
"... With guns a-blazin’ you’ll know not to mess with Texas as Arena Stage presents the political powder keg Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins. Kicking off their 2012-2013 season with this edgy charged performance, directed by David Esbjornson, the show is a one-woman rally starring Kathleen Turner as the loud and proud patriotic democrat Molly Ivins. Best known for her political wit and satire – the production is an exploration of her life’s high points and low moments, all packed into one motivational, uproarious, and emotionally touching evening."
Washington Examiner - Recommended
"... But "Red Hot Patriot" is not simply a historically accurate biographical tribute to Ivins. It's a recreation of the intense beliefs that drove her. Because this is the heart of the play, Kathleen Turner is an excellent choice to portray Ivins. Turner easily captures the blunt candor that identified Ivins, who loved nothing more than telling truth to power."
Baltimore Sun - Recommended
"... The rants and reflections, not to mention all the wicked wit in between, sound fresher than ever, and they keep this "Red Hot Patriot" spinning. No, make that kicking ass."
Examiner - Recommended
"... Playing the late Ivins in “Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit and Wisdom of Molly ivins,” is another baudy broad with a big personality: Oscar and Tony nominee Kathleen Turner. With her feet propped up on her gray metal desk, Turner waits for the applause to die down and says, “This is what ‘writing’ looks like.” The knowing laughter has already started, and won’t stop, not for long anyway, for the next seventy-five minutes."
WeLoveDC - Highly Recommended
"... As a satirist, Ivins never stops pointing out the absurdities of our system and the inequalities she saw around her. Those absurdities still exist, in our government buildings, law books, and yes, even our theaters. Now possibly more than ever, we are divided, polarized people; and we have an election coming to bring out the worst in us as both sides fight for authority and control."
Talkin Broadway - Highly Recommended
"...Arena Stage in Washington welcomes Molly back in the person of another gutsy woman, Kathleen Turner, in the crackling one-woman show Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins. Playwrights Margaret Engel and Allison Engel (sisters and journalists) crafted the 75-minute show out of Molly's words and life, and it's a perfect fit in the intimate Kogod Cradle."
Washington City Paper - Recommended
"... The physical character Turner has devised, however, is a captivating firecracker. She keeps her redboot-clad feet more than shoulder width apart, and her hands extended out inches from her hips, as if she was were ready to pull a Colt from a holster rather than launch a verbal assault. The show ends in a rush, with lines that have Turner alternating rapid-fire between the death of Ivins’ father, the insanity of politics, and the absurdity of cancer. So much wit and wisdom is packed into those three loaded topics, you’ll wish you had more time to hear about it. Ivins probably did, too."
Washington Diplomat - Recommended
"...Another major appeal of the play, perhaps, is that it is about a prominent female. Regrettably, in the same way Ivins was uncommon — a liberal in oil country, a woman in a man's world — so are biographies of women in the theater world. They exist, but are far and few between."
BrightestYoungThings - Highly Recommended
"... A highly entertaining romp, Red Hot Patriot delightfully delivers Ivins’ voice as an embedded journalist, not as expert witness to an embattled war zone, but to the similarly chaotic and unpredictable world of “The News.” Turner is Ivins, embodying the unique and important perspective of the liberal female journalist from Texas who wouldn’t take “no” or “later” for an answer."
Washington Blade - Recommended
"... Staged capably by David Esbjornson, “Red Hot Patriot” also gives brief glimpses into darker parts of our ballsy heroine’s not always charmed life. Turner handles these moments beautifully too. Beneath the humor and easy Texas ways, Ivins was a complicated woman who knew heartache, disappointment and rage. Boyfriends died too young. The cancer came later. About her battle with the bottle, she says, “Alcohol may lead nowhere but it sure is the scenic route.” Humor was not only good for getting readers’ attention, it also tempered feelings."
ShowBizRadio - Recommended
"... Molly lives again through Kathleen Turner and her one woman show at Arena Stage. Interestingly, Turner is also the daughter of a military man who didn’t quite understand her (as I read it) and she embodies the feisty, rebellious and compassionate woman who died too young and left not enough words to inspire a deluded populace who votes against itself and then complains about its delusions. Turner is stunning; unfortunately not enough folks outside of Texas know who Molly Ivins was and what she accomplished. Molly lived and died for The Texas Observer,a still small, independent muckraking rag taking on the establishmentarian, job outsourcing, polluting, offshore money concealing fat cats underwriting corporate journalism and political machinations."
Curtain Up - Recommended
"...Red Hot Patriot gives some explanation as to why Ivins never married — both of her best beau died young — and her midlife melancholy and heavy drinking. By the time she sobered up, the next challenge, which proved fatal, was upon her: breast cancer. The show ends with her final column, an obit of sorts for herself and for the brave, irre Kathleen Turner’s solo performance includes an assistant who enters from time to time to take new stories off the teletype machine (oh, yes, for those nostalgic for old time journalism, there’s nothing like hearing the ping of a teletype machine’s bell.) It begins strongly enough but her energy seemed to lag before the 75-minute show ends. Admittedly after laughing with Ivins at the foibles of her fellow Texans, friend and foe alike, witnessing her alcoholism and life-ending breast cancer is a downer. "
MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended
"... If you have only heard of Molly Ivins and occasionally her wit, then this show will give you a four-dimensional portrait of one of the funniest opinion journalist of an era. If you have only seen Kathleen Turner on the big screen or maybe on Broadway, then this show will give you a fabulous Turner as Ivins within the intimate confines of Arena’s Kogod Cradle. In the end this show will leave you laughing the way the political comics of old made you laugh, more cathartic and wiser than you were before that funny bone got smacked."
DCTheatreScene - Highly Recommended
To see and hear Kathleen Turner channel the words and wit of Molly Ivins is to be reminded that theatre can be like church. You need to go to get nudged into living more truthfully and stay fighting the good fight, maybe even to get an occasional, well-deserved dope slap.
