Good Apples Collective’s work has been featured in publications such as New York Magazine, Playbill, Theatrely, and many others. Read on to see what the buzz is all about…
buzz for cunnicularii
“See cunnicularii. Nina Goodheart directs Sophie McIntosh’s strange fable about the wildness of motherhood in which a woman gives birth to a bunny rabbit and things only get hairier (hare-ier?) from there.”
“Sophie McIntosh's cunnicularii at Good Apples Collective is a sly, shoestring-budget cabinet-of-wonders: a woman (Camille Umoff) gives birth to a rabbit, and no one seems to blink. (No one blinks at the way she's bleeding, either.) Nina Goodheart's production happens in a space not much larger than a glassed-in porch, but Umoff's precisely calibrated trembling—the sheen of one tear in each eye, the way she blinks at her doctor's rudeness—is seamlessly naturalistic, even from only a foot or so away. Umoff's straight-woman response to the nonsense around her (Juan Arturo is her goofy husband, Benjamin Milliken is the doctor and a lawnmower-obsessed neighbor) unlocks both cunnicularii’s humor and its swift pathos. (She also looks like a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting.) cunnicularii isn't some 1:1 parable about postpartum depression; it's a humanist mystery in the absurdist tradition. The play shows a real person making her way through a bizarre environment, a world ‘out of harmony’ that feels familiar without seeming real.”
“A swiftly cinematic marvel under Nina Goodheart’s impressively balletic direction… the play is powered and made tense by our knowledge of the situation’s extreme abnormality, revealing McIntosh’s sharp intuition and concern for women’s place in the world. There’s a dreaminess to the production, which Goodheart directs with a fantastic sense of stagecraft, featuring fluid transitions and reveals that move the plot forward… creating an impressionistic portrait of women’s dystopias amid men’s picket fence paradises. [cunnicularii] demonstrates McIntosh’s immense skill at exploring womanhood across a range of genres, modes, and tones.”
“cunnicularii is a bold new play by Sophie McIntosh that asks uncomfortable and essential questions about the expectations placed on mothers… The play is wildly funny as well as deeply serious. When Mary, performed with haunting realism by Camille Umoff, gives birth to a rabbit, she finds herself grappling with difficult emotions, particularly her inability to connect with her rabbit daughter, Josephine. Performed in a stark white box studio at the Alchemical studios, NYC, the production’s pace is relentless, combining painfully realistic conversations with physical theater, dream sequences, and a highly effective lighting and soundscape. Mary’s internal world projects itself onto every detail of the performance, and the audience is swept along entirely. The play deals with difficult and distressing topics… but, in the end, there is great hope and even greater love, found when Mary can accept without shame her own brutal and magical experience of motherhood. ★★★★”
“When I stepped into Studio 1, I was already anticipating my thoughts and questions on motherhood would be seen in cunnicularii. My gut-feeling was correct. The room is white-washed, leaving a canvas for Sophie McIntosh and the team to paint the picture of what motherhood is — a bunch of different colors smeared together and arranged differently for every woman in the world. Maria Shaughnessy’s score is… another character in the play. The music dances and emotes along with Mary, played by Camille Umoff. Green lights are choreographed in perfect timing to the music, illuminating the walls and floors of the room in synchronized moments. Colors are carefully picked throughout the play… Nina Goodheart’s direction is immensely precise right down to the multifunctional set and blocking, creating a seamless flow for the audience in this intermissionless 95-minute play. Sophie McIntosh’s writing of cunnicularii captures the layered nature of motherhood with uncanny skill. She also doesn’t shy away from including fatherhood in the conversation. Howard, Mary’s husband has his own journey with parenthood — grappling with what kind of father he wants to be… McIntosh has touched upon something bigger. I have not had children, but as a person who has lost herself in a role she played for the sake of someone else, I very much appreciate McIntosh and Goodheart’s work on this play.”
“cunnicularii, beautifully written by Sophie McIntosh and sensitively directed by Nina Goodheart, is a fantasy that deals with many of the adjustments in attitudes and perspectives encountered by new parents. It is a fable focusing on the sometimes overwhelming physical and emotional issues faced by mothers on their first time into the world of motherhood. It is a beautifully realized drama, both funny and serious. If you enjoy good theater, with solid acting, it will be very much worth the effort to see this production. It will only be around for a short time, so make the time to see it. Camille Umoff solidly inhabits [Mary], infusing her with the wonder, fear, emotional confusion, and pain new mothers frequently encounter. She gives a moving performance from start to finish with some well-executed choreographic interludes as dream sequences. Jen Anaya perfectly embodies Gladys with all the attitudes and behaviors one might expect from a mother-in-law and first-time grandmother… She always manages to surprise with a look, movement, or comment that keeps the character grounded and believable. Benjamin Milliken seamlessly shifts from the Doctor to Greg, making the character believable as the affable neighbor. The creative team does an extraordinary job with what is basically a stark, white room. The lighting design by Paige Seber adds definition to the space and beautifully underscores and transforms the scenes, infusing them with an extension of the emotions being expressed. Max Van’s sound design is a solid complement to the lighting, adding to the dramatic impact of the action. The sets and props by Evan Johnson are perfectly attuned to the story’s performance space and critical elements. Saawan Tiwari’s costume design rounds out the definition of the characters with a minimum of changes.”
“With her fantastic—and fantastical—new play, cunnicularii, Sophie McIntosh, author of New York Times Critic’s Pick macbitches, [explores] the silences and prescriptions that continue to surround motherhood—and fatherhood. cunniculariideftly interlaces its themes via a mixture of emotional authenticity, keen satire, and passages of lyrical beauty, all complemented by the engaging thematic use of color in the set, lighting, and costume design (by Evan Johnson, Paige Seber, and Saawan Tiwari, respectively). Benjamin Milliken is extremely funny as both the doctor and Greg, who share a similar, archetypically male blinkeredness, and Jen Anaya brings the necessary emotional weight to Gladys's comedic overbearingness when it counts. Juan Arturo and Camille Umoff wonderfully capture their characters' individual struggles with self-doubt, made all the more affecting in the former's case by his winning enthusiasm and in the latter's by her underplayed evocation of the physical aftereffects of pregnancy and birth and her efforts to maintain her resolve… We may be losing the right to choose whether to bear children, and we don’t want to tell you what to do with your life, but you still can, and should, choose to see cunnicularii.”
"Part social commentary, part fantasy, part bedtime story, fully engaging… director Nina Goodheart‘s crisp and attention-grabbing production… is about adjusting expectations. The script seems deceptively simple on paper… but there’s a deep and compelling subtext burrowed beneath the whimsical surface. That subtext is gently and effectively conveyed by Camille Umoff in the central role of Mary. Umoff exudes lovely comical pathos in scenes where Mary, alone with Josephine, struggles to make herself feel a bond with her child. cunnicularii has secured my opinion that Sophie McIntosh is an exciting playwright to watch for, and hopefully her work will soon be displayed in higher profile productions.”
“McIntosh’s wordplay balances exposition and observation with ease: one feels so very welcomed into this space, able to bare their heart alongside these young women. The back story is compelling, never draining, and statements on humanness arrive with subtlety in their bravado… Dialogue is not the only place where cityscrape excels. In fact, though the exchanges are captivating, I’d argue… silent action provides even more. McIntosh’s script meets director Nina Goodheart’s vision in a sublime way… Whether it’s Kitt’s migration to the bar cart or Kat’s growing pile of carrots, the seeds of disaster are planted with masterful understatement. As an audience, one’s subconscious knows exactly where this train is headed, and it makes the wreck all the more wrenching. The partnership between Goodheart and McIntosh epitomizes what makes this play so successful. I was blown away by the ensemble effort of this artistic team. Red Guhde’s precise attention to detail in set and prop design allowed the eye to gain insight with every object seen. Paige Seber’s impeccable lighting design provided a myriad of environments without once shifting physical set. Cora Cicala’s sound design, from Kitt-Kat’s playlist to the soundscape of Brooklyn, gave a real sense of grounding and intimate knowledge to a play rife with big ideas. And Saawan Tiwari’s costume design was a spectacular study in color theory and subtle hints. The marriage of all four—seamless, might I add—gave a full world, an effect I marveled at more than once. The technical design felt both inevitable and highly innovative. The actors lived up to this expectation and beyond. Simone Policano (Kat) was luminous. Capturing the intricacies of vulnerability and pain within a boisterous character can prove difficult, and Policano navigated the divide effortlessly. Kat felt beautifully fragile, painfully alive. Mia Fowler (Kitt) played Policano’s counterpart with skill. Though both young women royally screw up, they are neither perpetrators nor victims only. The denouement is not a catfight, either, but an open-ended question: are they better or worse apart? In short, cityscrape is a highly atmospheric, envelope-pushing piece, highlighting our deepest intimacies in a loud proclamation. New York artists, prepare to feel confronted… all in all, McIntosh and Goodheart’s inaugural piece is a heart-clenching joy.”
“cityscrape marks the engrossing debut production from Sophie McIntosh and director Nina Goodheart's Good Apples Collective… [cityscrape] dramatizes the difficulties of scraping by as an emerging artist, at the same time as it casts a canny but empathetic eye on how friends grow apart and together… Shifts from [the indoors] to the outdoors, primarily the building's rooftop, are accomplished via some cleverly minimalist illumination of a suggested city skyline.) As time moves on, however, tracked by the changing pages of a wall calendar (as well as some fantastic use of music during scene transitions)… [Kitt and Kat are each] tempted to undermine the other in the name of their relationship… Praiseworthy performances from the cast make it easy to get emotionally invested… Mia Fowler and simone Policano deliver turns that are compellingly nuanced, riotously funny, and achingly vulnerable, rendering the energy between them almost palpable, a dynamic into which Marianna Gailus effortlessly slips when Eileen appears on the scene. cityscrape deftly, entertainingly, and affectingly captures this dimension of art-making and shows its similarities to—not to mention its collision with—the sort of bright-burning attachment that appears either enviable or codependent, depending on how you tilt your head.”
