"It took only a few minutes for the audience to simmer down and settle into the bewitching theatrical spell cast by 'Nice Fish,' The production has been expertly directed by Claire van Kampen, and features wonderful performances not just from Mr. Rylance but from four other gifted actors...A few of the more whimsical moments in 'Nice Fish' left me, um, cold. But if one scene doesn’t grab you, you’re quickly on to the next."
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"'Nice Fish' is a whimsical, ultimately resonant portrait of lost souls waiting to hook or be hooked...It’s all vaguely 'Waiting for Godot'–ish, and Jenkins makes a modest bid as a flyover-state Samuel Beckett. Generally, though, the ultimate lure is a chance to see a great actor like Rylance cutting loose."
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"'Nice Fish' has the flat, folksy vaudeville quality of that radio show ['A Prairie Home Companion'], with its rime of humor and undertow of malaise. But with Rylance bringing his usual brilliance to the proceedings, and with a magical production directed by Claire Van Kampen, the play is clearly aiming for something deeper, and sometimes, despite the thin ice, achieves it."
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"Jenkins’ work tends, like Keillor’s monologues abot the fictional Minnesota town, toward stream-of-consciousness musings that begin in a specific moment before spiraling off into morality tales or nonsense, take your pick. Either way, the result is entertainment of an extremely high order: this is the kind of play that gives situation comedy its good name."
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"Imagine Beckett’s 'Waiting for Godot' on a frozen lake and you’ve got an idea of what to expect from 'Nice Fish,' an existential vaudeville piece...While there are moments that hook you and amuse and charm, the show, told in short scenes between blackouts in lieu of actual transitions, loses its grip. These ice men cometh — and sometimes boreth."
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"'Nice Fish' is both the title and the punchline of the deliriously funny existential ruminations that Mark Rylance and the Midwestern folk-bard Louis Jenkins have fashioned from Jenkins’ poetry. It’s a compact, unpretentious play, but gorgeously set on stage...Some wonderful theatrical effects are executed during the show’s blackout scenes...The show ends with a coup de theatre that is pure surreal pleasure. But it’s Jenkins’ poetry that hangs in the air at the end of the show."
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"Featuring a hilarious deadpan performance by Mark Rylance, 'Nice Fish' is a great catch...'Nice Fish' is certainly disjointed and rambling, and its slow pace could provoke irritation among the less patient. But its whimsical observational humor is consistently amusing, and the performers deliver the poetry with unforced naturalness. All are excellent, but it's Rylance who enchants. "
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"'Fish' is at its best when it’s at its most absurd: Rylance, in a fluorescent orange snowsuit, attempting to entertain his intense fisherman by pretending to be a snowman…The waters get muddied when other random characters float in. Not that sweet young sauna owner Flo and the DNR Man aren’t amusing additions...They simply seem unnecessary — particularly since Rylance and Lichtscheidl prove such a perfect, almost vaudevillian pairing."
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