"A terrific, moving new multimedia theater piece about troubled youth...Despite the complexity of its structure, the production’s emotional fluency is bell-clear, as is its honesty about the complex and sometimes mysterious roots of the characters’ problems...The young actors are all superb...'Wilderness' is at its eloquent best when it is simplest, when the characters and their parents discuss their lives, in unadorned language, with an honesty that is deeply affecting."
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"There isn't much new here. The play never becomes more than a static after-school special of the '90s. The performances themselves also feel forced and not fully lived in...Director Bockley places this collage together as best as he can, though the performances can never recover from their moments of forced sweater-on-chair ballet. I craved more time with each scene, allowing us to understand and explore each moment with nuance rather than melodrama and interpretative dance."
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"Now and then the juxtaposition of interview footage with scripted scenes took some of the punch out of the latter...Interpretive movement sequences, directed by Devon de Mayo and Patrick McCollum, did not seem entirely necessary but nonetheless fit in with the overall aesthetic. While some of the stories, at times, seemed to become repetitive, the play ends on an uplifting note...In the hands of its talented cast and imaginative creative team, the stories take on incredible life."
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"A compassionate glimpse at the outer edge of teenage angst...A smart ensemble of young actors turns the real-life stories from Hamburger's research into an endearing constellation of high school kids in distress...Though it's poignant to hear from the parents, the interactions between the teens are what's most compelling here...There's a lot of beauty here. Between scenes, the teenagers perform unison choreography, which is, often, evocative and graceful."
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"What could be maudlin and sentimental is anything but. In one of the most vivid moments a kid reveals that her mother tried to hang her when she was younger. A counselor burst out into tears (usually crying onstage is the sign of lazy writing) and when asked why says, 'it just seems like someone should cry,' in a plainspoken way that can only break your heart. One of the greatest strengths of 'Wilderness' is that it feels too real to be a play."
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