What Critics Are Saying
“The Tin Woman is a winner …a very laudable tear-jerker infused with humor… Jesse Lumb excels.”
– Kedar K. Adour, M.D., TheatreWorld
“Toss together a strong cast, a sweetly humorous and affecting play, and intelligent, capable direction, and you have a hit show at Ross Valley Players…a superb rendition…An all-around excellent cast gives the play a boost with first-rate performances.
Tremendous, too, are Joanna Cretella, who portrays Joy, the guilt-ridden recipient, with just the right degrees of prickliness and confusion; Isabelle Grimm, who plays Alice and Hank’s befuddled, airy-fairy pre-school-teaching daughter, Sammy, with perfectly cartoonish behaviors that significantly leaven the play’s solemnity; and Jesse Lumb as Jack, whose constant, mostly silent ghostly onstage presence is transmitted by roving eyes and restless pacing.
Director Michael Barr, who recently helmed A Streetcar Named Desire for the Novato Theater Company, has saturated the 105-minute life-affirming show with what the United States needs most now: compassion, honesty and — like the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz” — yes, as might be expected, heart.
…the non-Equity Ross Valley Players have become so consistently first-rate they’ve dodged virtually all the traps typically encountered in community theater. It’s been my pleasure to experience that professionalism.
So, as the old Alka-Seltzer commercial bellowed incessantly, I strongly suggest that you “Try it! You’ll like it.” – Woody Weingarten, Talkin’ Broadway