SMALL ENGINE REPAIR: 100% – SWEET

Michael Redfield, John Pollono, and Jon Bernthal in "Small Engine Repair" presented by Rogue Machine Theatre at Beverly Hills Playhouse. Photo courtesy of John P. Flynn.

SWEET
Director Andrew Block extracts such realistic performances from his cast that we almost forget we are watching a play, as the appalling action unfolds mere inches away.
Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly

SWEET
Let’s simply say there’s much more than gears and pistons churning in this greasy repair shop. Director Andrew Block’s pitch-perfect world-premiere staging packs a potent punch.
Les Spindle – Backstage

SWEET
Most of Small Engine Repair feels raw and unfinished, but it has an energy that eludes more polished productions of more studiedly articulate plays.
Harvey Perr – Stage and Cinema

SWEET
Small Engine Repair is so exceptionally engrossing, entertaining, funny, and true-to-life that it is easy to forget that you are watching a play surrounded by audience on a nondescript Mid City block and not guzzling beer in a greasy repair shop.
Mialka Bonadonna-Morano – LAist

SWEET
In a sequence of horrific, grotesque and comic twists, persuasively directed by Andrew Block, every passing remark becomes significant. The actors take their characters so far beyond type that they can even, refreshingly for dramatis personae, laugh at themselves. What first seems like a theatrical version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” or Nickelback’s “Photograph” (middle-aged men acknowledging the pathos of their own nostalgia) turns into a stunning investigation of classism, sexism, the lonely joys and terrors of bringing up a child, and the limits and possibilities of friendship.
Margaret Gray – LA Times

SWEET
Small Engine Repair by John Pollano is so gripping, funny, modern, and reflective of our time that I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Eve Meadows – Stagehappenings

SWEET
Even though we wish the fireworks would arrive sooner, it is still a wholly satisfying and exciting evening in the theatre.
Tony Frankel – Stagehappenings

SWEET
Buckle your seatbelts for when this turbo-testosterone charged one-act shifts from neutral into high gear, the little play that could produces maximum torque with its chilling twists and turns.
M.R. Hunter – EyeSpyLA

SWEET
Amid Pollono’s riotous ramblings on vagina, Jameson and CSI, there exists a hilarious truth at play. A brutal glimpse of those still stuck on the first rung of life’s ladder. Although Frank’s ill-conceived plan for vengeance plays more farcical than predatory, what grows problematic is the vaguely drawn relationship between him, his (unseen) daughter and circumstance.
Craigh Parish – Socal.com

SWEET
It’s not long before you forget you’re watching a play and effortlessly fall into its rhythm and drama. It’s captivating. And just when you think you know the thing, Small Engine Repair will not let you get comfortable or complacent or let you assume for one second that you know what’s going to happen next. These 90 minutes are full of surprises.
Ceebs Bailey – LASplash

SWEET
Pollono uses words with devastating impact, although many of them are the four-letter kind. Andrew Block’s direction is so natural it doesn’t show. We feel they’ve just stood up and moved onto the stage. David Mauer’s production design suits the title: a small room with no windows and a big refrigerator in the center with the tools of Frank’s trade neatly lined about. This is a class play, as well as a guy thing.
Laura Hitchcock – CurtainUp

SWEET
“Small Engine Repair” is a seemingly simple story that suddenly shifts into something much more complex, with hysterical and tragic results. Pollono and director Andrew Block do a wonderful job weaving in crucial plot points throughout, and everything from set pieces to dialogue come together in an unexpected climax.
Jonathan Bue – Campus Circle

SWEET
Melodramas shoving lowlife crumbbums into a pressure cooker — with David Mamet’s “American Buffalo” standing as the granddaddy of them all — don’t come any funnier or more intense than John Pollono’s “Small Engine Repair,” an atmospheric exploration of friendship and retribution in the wilds of Manchester, N.H. A powerhouse cast led by the scribe himself and Jon Bernthal of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” makes for a most gripping and fast-moving 85 minutes.
Bob Verini – Variety

SWEET
Small Engine Repair is yet another example of Los Angeles theater at its world-classiest. From its initial laughter-packed minutes to the edge-of-your-seat suspense which begins about midway through to the roller coaster of emotions its final moments inspire, John Pollono’s Small Engine Repair delivers one rich evening of theater in seventy-five memorable minutes.
Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA

SMALL ENGINE REPAIR
Rogue Machine Theatre
NOW RUNNING at Beverly Hills Playhouse
254 S Robertson Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211
Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 7 p.m.
EXTENDED THRU SEPTEMBER 4, 2011
Tickets: $25; (855) 585-5185