"A remarkable new play, Turning the Glass Around, by Pia Wilson, fearlessly plunges into the ever-morphing conversation about immigration, race and class. Turning the Glass Around evokes images of Death of A Salesman. Wilson creates a nuanced pressure cooker played out when an economic and emotional meltdown befalls a young interracial couple striving towards the American dream. They forge ahead in spite of their difficult financial circumstances and their parents' cultural expectations of them."
"The basics of this play are top quality: the acting is excellent—genuine, natural, and graceful. The dialogue flows naturally, and there is never a false note. The characters are by turn tender, frustrated, angry, pleading and loving with each other—and you can empathize with each of their points of view, which adds to the show's tension: you believe that there is a lot at stake for each character.
Pia Wilson's new play, Turning the Glass Around, interweaves the naturalistic and the theatrical, the rational and the seemingly irrational, and the everyday and the supernatural in order to interrogate other, contemporary American hybridities.The interracial marriage of Philip and Daina Lee (Don Castro and Carmen Gill) comprises the vehicle for Wilson's deconstruction of "America" and its “Dream” in the tradition of playwrights such as Suzan-Lori Parks and David Henry Hwang.
Turning the Glass Around is a poignant drama about a Korean American man’s unraveling following the death of his father. Written by Pia Wilson and now playing at Teatro Circulo, the play is an in-depth exploration of grief and mental illness in the face of racism and disillusionment with the American Dream.
"Wilson's writing is strong, loaded with powerful images and sometimes poetic phrasing. She's added a twist at the end of the play that I absolutely didn't see coming..."
"The Flower Thief by Pia Wilson is an utterly captivating, bittersweet story of yearning, loss, and unrelenting pain. It weaves past with present, hope with heartache, and in between the quiet moments the story – like a flower – blossoms, bursts, and then quietly withers in an achingly beautiful arc that leaves the audience with a feeling of both completion as well as conjecture.
BOTTOM LINE: An ambitious new play about love, loss, and destiny, The Flower Thief will move you, surprise you, and possibly leave you wondering what it all meant.