Circle of Will

"Riotous! * Hilarious! * Ingenious!"
The most rewarding hour, and certainly the funniest, you'll ever spend in the theatre, or for that matter, anywhere. Grapes is by turns an actor with impeccable comic timing, a riotous, hilarious, ingenious, genuinely jocular wag who has taken a chance at reinventing the funny bone. --B'nai B'rith Messenger

"Sensational!"
This comic conundrum is an absurdist's paradise that mixes illusion, reality, Shakespeare and Hollywood in a Cuisinart designed by Pirandello on laughing gas. The play is so much fun and filled with so many surprises. IF you love to laugh and think at the same time, you can't have a better time in the theatre. Grapes and Cakmis were just sensational! --Los Angeles Evening Outlook

"Irresistible!"
Grapes and Cakmis have us between their sneaky little fingers when the lights go up. This knockabout comedy that could have been written by Neil Simon becomes a wicked excursion (with an especially wicked twist) that moves from one brand of comedy to another. What pulls the audience merrily along are Grapes--dry and sweet-hearted--and Cakmis, hilariously self-important. The irresistible glimmer in Grapes' eye tells us to take none of this too seriously. --Los Angeles Times

"A Gift!"
Circle of Will  is not just funny--very funny--it has a rattling aggressive edge to it--a thought-provoking quality which remains long after the immediate jocularity subsides. It is painfully funny and packed with subtle philosophical messages. It doesn't just address the issue of Life/Art/Audience--what links and separates them--but is rendered in such a humane manner that the performance becomes the vehicle for an actual exchange of love between artist and audience. What a great gift! --San Francisco Chronicle

"A Spectacular Tour de Force"
Circle of Will  is a spectacular tour-de-force which races through vaudeville, heroic aspirations, and something called quantum theatre metaphysics" to arrive almost back where it started. Jack Grapes portrays a Shakespeare we've never seen before, an easy-going, somewhat naive young playwright struggling to appease his temperamental colleage Richard "Dirk" Burbage, played by Bill Cakmis, and he has to do so while observing the rules of classical theatre simultaneously. Circle of Will  takes an unusual and rather irreverent stance. It's not only the characterizations in the play that are controversial, but also the fluidity of the piece and the flouting of our traditional ideas of drama. The play breaks our preconceived notions of theatre again and again until the audience is not really sure who's acting and who's watching. --National Public Radio

"A Certified Thought-Provoking Riot!"
How do I review a play when I can reveal almost nothing about the plot? During the course of Circle of Will  I was buffeted back and forth between 16th and 20th centuries, seesawed between illusion and reality, out-Sleuthed," out-Pirandelloed, and carried away on waves of sympathy and laughter. Circle of Will  is a certified thought-provoking riot in which Romeo falls in love with Cleopatra, Ophelia's severed right hand is carried off on a platter, the actors must step around the dismembered body of King Henry the Fourth (parts I and II), and there is talk of taming the shrew in a tempest. This play is a piece of metaphysical insanity. Go and find out for yourself. You will be rewarded beyond measure. This is the cleverest original work I've seen in a long time. --Jewish Journal

"A Bizarre Trip!"
This bizarre trip through history-as-it-should-have-been is bull's-eye accurate in pin-pointing the audience's funnybone, which it thereafter tweaks unmercifully throughout the show. It nearly makes one wonder if too much laughter may be a health hazard. Grapes' bumbling, good-natured Shakespeare, and Cakmis' bantering Burbage draw us into the tale and lead us laughing throughout the play's abundant twists and concolutions. Their smooth, odd-couple realtionship is a pleasure to behold. --Simi Valley Enterprise

"A Triumph!"
In this very clever comedy, part of the fun are the surprising turns the production takes with very funny situations, and funny behavior, and even the most cautious skeptical theatregoer will probably fall prey to the play's tricks and twists. ***** Excellent! --Los Angeles Magazine

"A Metaphysical Comedy!"
This comedy has more to say about what's going on, and what isn't, than most serious" plays. It's meant to be enjoyed on several levels at once, and it has several surprises in store for anyone willing to go along with the fun. --Los Angeles Reader

"Goes Way Beyond Mere Entertainment!"
As a parody of what William Shakespeare's life might have been like before his enlightenment, Will is an engaging and hilarious theatre experience. But author Jack Grapes goes way beyond mere entertainment, creating an intelligent piece of theatre which peers into the very foundations of drama itself. Will is a kind of mobius, and Grapes and Cakmis cleverly guide us along it, delivering their subject on a number of levels, making it, like much of the bard's own work, doubly satisfying mixing entertainment and art into a delightful blend accessible to all. --Los Angeles Weekly