"As sensually enveloping as 'Trash Cuisine' often is, its theatrical technique and emotional earnestness aren’t quite compelling enough to overcome the more rational objections it inspires. But if connecting thematic dots here creates an unduly tangled web, the show can be highly effective scene by scene. And it’s hard not to admire its pure theatrical imagination."
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"The show thrillingly raises important questions about the modern state of capital punishment through a well-choreographed barrage of sights, sounds, and smells...This is not theater for the faint of heart. If 'Trash Cuisine' is ever presented at one of our nation's many sensitive liberal arts colleges, it will almost certainly come with a trigger warning. Still, this unique and rigorous political theater is not to be missed."
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"A multicourse banquet of brutality that is calculated to make you wonder if humanity is really worth the name. Prepare to leave the theatre thoroughly shaken...It is a tribute to this troupe's total commitment and almost neoclassical discipline that "Trash Cuisine" exerts it viselike grip for the vast majority of its running time. It's a profoundly clarifying experience, cutting through the hysteria that so often infects our national conversation. We are made to stare into the face of authentic evil."
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"Belarus Free Theater seems to be using their bodies as instruments of social protest. If they are suffering, who is suffering with them? When they take on the suffering of others, they become a vessel for sorrow. It is somehow both inclusive and removed. Somehow, the shockwaves don’t seem to reverberate."
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"Those looking for something raw, unique, and devastating in a theater experience will find it in 'Trash Cuisine.' An unnerving depiction of the torture and execution of political prisoners,'Trash Cuisine' is uncomfortable to watch...And the piece deserves those unsettling feelings and the literal sickness you may experience."
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"A reminder of the complacency of all of us privileged enough to live in democracies but not angry enough to fight for one, it’s harder to swallow when the show draws an amalgam between the cruelty inflicted on a songbird and the murder of Tutsi children. As any marksman knows, precision is everything; with its sights more on target, 'Trash Cuisine’s' bullet would be all the more deadly."
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"A beautiful exploration of human craving and excess; the desire to indulge our mouths not so different from the urge to whet our aggression...Belarus Free Theatre is able to present these human tragedies without lecturing and without misery, rather they play to several of our senses as a way of engaging us to think about what these horrors mean and how they could ever happen, as opposed to merely pushing them in our face."
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"Belarus Free Theatre delivers a knockout punch with its monumental 'Trash Cuisine,' an amorphous dedication to capital punishment...expertly crafted, magnificent work...While 'Trash Cuisine' skirts genuinely close to perfection, there are a few minute missteps, but these errata barely cloud the production's splendor."
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