Washington Post - Somewhat Recommended
"... As the show’s nasty gamesters keep flipping the tables on one another, a touch of hammy acting wouldn’t exactly be out of line, and Jim Petosa’s production seems to goad the performers skyward by the sheer flamboyance of its design. Cristina Tedesco provides a shiny, high-ceilinged English manor with a white floor that gleams like a china plate; when Bob Ari, in a deluxe smoking jacket as Andrew Wyke, the writer, points a remote control, little panels of the floor slide away to reveal hidden treasures."
Baltimore Sun - Recommended
"...After more than 40 years, Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth" holds up pretty well in the crime play genre. Sure, it creaks a little here and there, but it still satisfies with its verbal sparring, its unashamed theatricality. That point is reiterated by the revival currently at the Olney Theatre Center."
Washingtonian - Recommended
"... The play hits its pinnacle when Wyke reveals his class snobbery, ethnic and religious prejudice, and reactionary view of the welfare state England had become by 1970 (when the country’s rock stars were moving here to avoid being taxed at 70 or 80 percent). That’s when the dialogue really cooks and when his scorn and condescension rain dramatically down on Milo, a struggling travel agent who’s the half-Jewish son of a watch repair man. The life-or-death games of cat-and-mouse, each one played with stakes a bit higher than the last, are fun, too, but they’re formulaic. Wyke’s venom is not."
DC Theater Arts - Highly Recommended
"... Sleuth is an evening best enjoyed without preconceptions; the audience’s engagement with the characters depends upon sharing their uncertainty about what is real, what is false, and what is about to happen next. No matter what your expectations may be, however, Olney Theater Center’s magnificent Sleuth lives up to the most basic duty of any detective novel – it keeps you guessing until the very end."
Gazette.net - Highly Recommended
"... Can a play turned into a well-known film (and later a little known failure) still hold its own on stage 40 years later? Based on the production currently underway at the Olney Theatre, the answer would be a resounding, “Yes!”"
MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended
"...Sleuth is a cleverly written, well-directed, brilliantly acted play that will keep the audience wondering if what they witnessed was real or just part of the game."
DCTheatreScene - Highly Recommended
British playwright Anthony Shaffer’s ingenious, hairpin-turn stage thriller about a competitive game of one-upmanship, humiliation and revenge, is scored like a tennis game.
The incomparable Jim Petosa, an award-winning stage director who is leaving the area after serving as an exemplary Olney Theatre Center artistic director for 18 years, leaves behind a unique, mind-blowing, Stanley Kubrick-like vision.
