Reviews / comments
Having worked as a theater critic for Stage Raw in LA for a year, I have a renewed respect for critics. At least for those who take their job seriously, as my colleagues at Stage Raw certainly did. That said, there is a subjective element to the craft, as there is to the way we respond to being criticized. So I am happy to promote the positive feedback and suppress the negative. Just know that, like most artists, I remember the negatives a lot longer.
About ANGEL’S GLANCE
Kirkus Reviews has called his novel Angel’s Glance, “A haunting and keenly observed meditation on relationships, parenthood, and the vagaries of celebrity and fame.”
About SCATTERED BLOSSOMS
In 2014, Master playwright John Guare read the play and wrote an email, calling it “a gorgeous work in a diction i was completely unprepared for - a piece of music - a world you've made you're own.”
And this is from Juliette Carillo, a Los Angeles-based stage director: “Stephen, My sincere apologies for taking so long. I had a little time this AM, so I read it quickly. It's a beautiful and imaginative reinvention of a very unique relationship. A very creative idea, and done very theatrically. You have a wonderful sense of language. I can tell by your very thorough stage directions that you definitely have a director in you. Although I know you don't want to direct, I think this is a writer/director project!
I wish you the very best, Juliette”
About THE 13TH BOY
“There was this widespread assumption that if you put your child in a private school that they were in safer space,” said Marci Hamilton, a professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo law school at Yeshiva University who specializes in sexual-abuse cases and consulted on the report. “Just like all the rest of the assumptions that we’ve had about child sex abuse—that it’s rare, that it doesn’t have long-term effects—all of these myths about child sex abuse have been blown out of the water.” – From WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 26, 2015
NOTE: This review is by Kevin Mulhearn, the foremost attorney in the US representing groups of abused kids and teens. I don’t know him personally but deeply respect his pursuit of justice.
5.0 out of 5 stars that schools and administrators which deny any real and meaningful justice to victims and cover up their own complicity
September 30, 2014
Stephen Fife's The 13th Boy is a powerful and eloquent memoir which bravely but delicately delves into many sensitive, if not taboo, subjects: the vulnerability of adolescents to charismatic adults who exploit their youthful search for distinct identities by constantly telling them that they are "special," "great," or blessed with "genius," the all-too-frequent and mind-boggling enabling of sexual predators by otherwise responsible and decent educators, the ongoing fight for survivors of sexual abuse to maintain a sense of confidence and establish their true identities after their childhood innocence has been savagely ripped from them, and the continuous battle for sex abuse survivors to find a reason to continue to live (and love) in the wake of these vicious assaults on their bodies and souls. Stephen Fife demonstrates with his detailed account of his own harrowing journey that these issues are as timely now as they ever have been, that schools and administrators which deny any real and meaningful justice to victims and cover up their own complicity in the sexual assaults of their students cannot in good faith proceed in educating our children as if their crimes against humanity never happened, and that it is a daily outrage (fueled by cowardly legislators and judges) to permit perpetrators (i.e., child rapists) and cover-up artists (i.e., those who let known child rapists have unfettered access to unsuspecting children) to escape accountability by hiding behind absurd and antiquated statutes of limitation. Stephen Fife reminds us that this issue for all too many is truly a matter of life and death. I am grateful that the author was able to fend off his demons and write this book. It should be required reading for every single legislator and judge in New York State. Parents, too, would do well to read this book.
Mother Jones once famously stated her personal motto: "Pray for the dead, but fight like hell for the living." Stephen Fife manages to do both at the same time with this remarkable, brave, and extraordinarily insightful book. I wish him all the best as he continues to heal and helps others to heal. He deserves nothing less.
As to the masses, and especially legislators and judges, get your heads out of the sand (I'm being polite and passing up a more apropos rhyme), and start being part of the solution instead of the problem. There is work to be done. Valuable work that will both help and honor those whose lives were derailed by sexual predators and those who were unable to cope and are no longer with us. Lend your voices to those who can no longer speak for themselves and who are dead before their time only because they had the misfortune of going to a school where a child rapist was given carte blanche to pick his prey at will. Fight like hell to help the innocent and oppressed and punish the evildoers (many of whom, perversely, live comfortable lives thinking that they are beyond the reach of the law). That is not only your job; it is your duty.
But don't just listen to me. Read The 13th Boy! And, for all that is good and holy, do something! It is long, long, long overdue.
Thank you, Stephen Fife. And bless you for your courage in writing this book.
– KEVIN THOMAS MULHEARN
About SAVAGE WORLD
SAVAGE WORLD was named “One of the Best Productions in Los Angeles 2008” by Backstage West.
STEPHEN FIFE was named One of the top 10 Playwrights in Los Angeles 2008 by Backstage West.
“Stephen Fife has created an epic American play… What Fife and his crew have accomplished is
haunting…and unmistakably commendable.” -- BACKSTAGE WEST (Critic’s Pick)
“SAVAGE WORLD is proof of the power of theater: the ability to dramatize the struggles, triumphs of one and the many, and how story brings us together to see a part of the world we can only dare imagine.”
(Highly Recommended) -- TOLUCAN TIMES
“At the end, the audience rewarded the huge cast with enthusiastic applause and a standing ovation... [Savage World] grabs your imagination and holds your interest."– REVIEWPLAYS.COM
“The juicy core of the conflict is whether [the boxer] "Savage" James is indeed not guilty... [It's] an intense character-driven drama...” -- THE LA WEEKLY
“SAVAGE WORLD is very intense and is written in the style of a feature film on the subjects of wrongful conviction, racial issues, the drive of a person to do what is right… Judge this play as a dramatic struggle for justice rather than another “sports” issue.” -- ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE
About BLUE KISS
REVIEW EXCERPTS FROM THE HOLLYWOOD FRINGE PRODUCTION, JUNE 5-30 2013
“Needless to say, I recommend the play. It is incredibly written…. Brilliant.” – Robert Leggett, The Examiner.com
“How can we ever know the whole truth? Even though I saw and heard the entire play, I’m still not sure… Words are only words, and if, like in Doubt, the audience was polled, what would the verdict be? Stephen Fife delivers a sly and brilliant conundrum. I loved it.” – Morna Murphy Martell, theatrespokenhere.blogspot.com
“The performances in Blue Kiss are strong and worth watching. Overall the play is a very rich story with sympathetic characters struggling to discover the truth whether they like it or not.” – Miguel Garcia, pLAywriting in the City
“On its way to becoming an American Masterpiece… The journey is engaging, surprising and quite moving.” – John Perrin Flynn, Artistic Director, Roguemachine Theatre
REVIEW EXCERPTS FROM THE HOLLYWOOD FRINGE PRODUCTION, JUNE 8-28 2019
“A lot is accomplished with only two actors onstage. The great twists and turns keep you on the edge of your seat. The ending packs a powerful punch.” – Peter Foldy, Hollywood Revealed
“Well-written, with great roles for actors, the play left me thinking about it long after it was over.” – Chris Levine, Hollywood Onstage
“A simple premise leads to a series of tense confrontations. This play gives us a convincingly nuanced portrayal of separately flawed individuals, each struggling to reconcile unmitigated trauma.” – Susan Sadler, Discover Hollywood
About ANGEL’S GLANCE
"I found myself laughing out loud and moved to tears by this brilliantly-woven tale of creative chaos!” – Billy Hayes, author of Midnight Express (and a character in this novel)
“Steve Fife turns gender roles upside down in this quirky and often-hilarious novel!” – Mindy Lewis, author of Life Inside: A Memoir
“Angel’s Glance, surprising and inventive, lingers in the heart and mind long after the final page has been read.” – Hana Goldberg, best-selling author of Not A Word About Love
"Equal parts Woody Allen and Phillip Roth, Angel’s Glance is a skillfully rendered portrait of a troubled urban relationship on the cusp of the 21st century.” – R. Pezzullo, New York Times bestselling author, fiction/nonfiction
“Recalls Arthur Miller’s play After The Fall, but more humane. This is a love letter that charts a terrain of mutual affection and annoyance.” – Steven Leigh Morris, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of StageRaw.com, reviews and articles about LA Theater
“Fife creates a parallel universe, a self-referential pop-culture myth. He never takes his eyes off the prize: finding our way back to our better angels.” – Allison Burnett, author of The Undiscovered Gyrl and The Escape of Malcolm Poe
“Angel’s Glance is a love story complete with all the heartbreak, exhilaration, illusions, delusions, twists and turns. It’s real page turner!" – Sharon Sharth, actor, playwright, author
About TWISTED HIPSTER
“Stephen Fife's poems are powerful, edgy, and utterly alive.” – Thomas Lux
“Stephen Fife's powerful lens pinpoints daily drama and delusion in our 21st Century mysterium.” -- Jean-Claude van Itallie, author of America Hurrah and The Serpent
“These searching and evocative poems by Stephen Fife dance, just like the aspirations of the girls overheard in the bathroom in the memorable ‘Public School Boogie.’ Even as their dancing voice is singular, it also echoes: poets ranging from the expansiveness of Whitman (‘My soul is restless’ from ‘Early Aspirations’) to the precision of William Carlos Williams (‘A hobo/wanders/searches/drifts/over a gray concrete staircase,/the dust of withered gardens/on his hands’ from ‘Hobo’), to the subtlety of Robert Frost (‘Homage to Frost’). TWISTED HIPSTER is a compelling collection, summoned up from the chronological roots of the poet’s life in ways that are alternately funny, youthful, sad, compelling, and on occasion even dramatically suspenseful (‘Summer Evening, New York’). Fife’s gifts for poetic techniques like personification are striking (‘The saboteur’s hand/reaches down,/its palm without creases,/its fingers/extensions of bone,/and,/with a flick of the wrist/that eludes me,/lets in the day’ from ‘Morning,’ and ‘I have been oversold./Whatever there is of me/that can be bought/has gone on sale’ from ‘Yard Sale of My Soul’). But even more impressive is his intense honesty, his loyalty to what he perceives from an early age, and his desire to share it all with the world, decades later. I couldn’t recommend TWISTED HIPSTER more strongly. You will never forget these vivid and heartfelt poems.” – Lee Slonimsky, author of Wandering Electron and Logician of the Wind
“The poems in Stephen Fife’s new collection are often spare in their form, yet vast in the scope of their sympathy and the depth of their yearning. Through the many styles of verse here -- when Fife chooses to rhyme, a reader often feels the pleasure of order before even noticing how it was achieved – he remains a true poet of ‘alone-ness,’ asking: who are these others in my city, and in my memory? Anyone who has felt that persistent solitude will find here a companion worth lingering alongside: a U for your ME.” – Robert N. Watson, poet and Distinguished Professor of English, UCLA
About DREAMING IN THE MAZE OF LOVE-GRIEF-MADNESS
“These mostly autobiographical poems show the growing mind of a young man, one with a ‘restless soul,’ one with an eye for the deeper recesses of the human condition, and one that can simultaneously cast a wide eye into the natural world around him. What talent at such a young age! And what a gift to the world to read when ‘the door of his cage will be flung open.’”
– Victoria Chang, acclaimed author of Obit and Dear Memory
“Stephen Fife’s poetry teacher’s absurd claim that nothing worth reading could be written before the age of 40, famously repudiated for centuries by poets ranging from Christopher Marlow to John Keats to Sylvia Plath, is emphatically contradicted in this passionate and engaging collection, which also includes a number of evocative sketches by the poet. A combination of adroit description and Blakean metaphysical depth engages the reader in a poem like ‘The Insect’: ‘No Saint Jerome/could find a better skull:/the shiny flesh,/the poison-gutted bulb,/the tracings of a/craftsman’s faded hands/affixing to the shape/a signature/as recognizable/as Whistler’s wings.’ The beautiful imagery of a poem like ‘Where’ (‘The snowdrift flower/Melts within winter’s/Clouded breath’) is an example of the precise beauty that is a recurring feature of Fife’s poems. The sometimes wry and always fascinating presence of Hamlet in these pages brings to mind the Bard of Avon as well. DREAMING IN THE MAZE OF LOVE-GRIEF-MADNESS is a testimony to the vitality of the poetic spirit for poets of any age or Age, and a tribute to this particular poet’s intense energy and vision, well worth reading.” – Lee Slonimsky, author of Wandering Electron and Logician of the Wind
“This book bleeds the passions of youth, racked with doubt amid blazing aspirations, words thrown to the wind, women in water, grabbing him by the roots of poetry... It is an offering, a sign, brilliantly naïve yet profound. – Billy Hayes, author of Midnight Express and The Midnight Express Letters from a Turkish Prison
“A fascinating portrait of an artistic young man emerges from Stephen Fife’s poetry, conveying the pain of a self giving birth to a soul. From the echoes of Hopkins in ‘The First Man’ to the Tennysonian ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ to the whimsical revisitings of Hamlet and T.S. Eliot, Fife works in poetic traditions with a winning mix of reverence and irreverence: unabashed to be high-poetic yet unafraid to be hilarious. From the evocative artistry of ‘The Wave’ to the spare but gorgeous ‘Importer of Love,’ from the unsettling simplicity of ‘Song of the Man with No Song’ to the masterly lurking of rhymes in the allegorical ‘Invocation,’ Dreaming in the Maze brings us deep inside the experience of a lone traveler -- a doubter with compelling visions.” – Robert N. Watson, poet and Distinguished Professor of English, UCLA; author of Back to Nature: The Green and the Real in the Late Renaissance
About THE AMERICAN WIFE
London review highlights for THE AMERICAN WIFE: “A snappy political potboiler.” – The Stage
“Engrossing narrative…Very forceful, physically and psychologically…The final scenes took me by surprise, and I utterly failed to predict the final outcome.” - C. Omaweng, London Theatre 1
“Julia Eringer plays the protagonist with confidence and a no-nonsense attitude.” – Exeunt Magazine