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Fresh Praise for Pochsy IV, October 2023
Hines delivers an impressive 75 minutes of seamless dialogue with an inky black charm that is nothing short of riveting.
Edmonton Journal
You’d call the show an hallucination if hallucinations were as expertly constructed as Pochsy IV. Or maybe a nightmare if nightmares were as funny.
Liz Nicholls, Twelfth Night
Press Quotes: The Pochsy Plays 1992-2010
To be in love with Pochsy, as I am, is an exquisitely perverse addiction. Karen Hines’s character, with her breathlessly innocent voice, butterfly lashes, and Cupid’s-bow mouth is as gorgeous as the ghost of a silent film star and as rancid as the corpse. She’s like a disease you want to get in the hopes that it will purge something bigger. (Colin Thomas, The Georgia Straight)
A miracle of bitter hope… Hines has tapped into the confusion and alienation unique to our age and mined a work of gossamer charm and deadly power… Pochsy is part of the light that keeps us laughing as we plunge into the darkness. Beckett would have fallen for her. (Simon Houpt, Eye Weekly, Toronto)
Karen Hines is an astonishing artist, both as a writer and a performer. Her acid meditation on our modern confusion, narcissistic tendencies and market-driven hunger for the quick-fix comes via …the the murky labyrinth of Pochsy’s brain. You will laugh, a lot, and Pochsy will help you be dismayed at your laugh lines.
(Liz Nicholls, Edmonton Journal)
Hilarious and harrowing… A walking, singing, dancing embodiment of designer nihilism… Her comedy has the rare ability to make you laugh while feeling queasy. (Jill Lawless, Now Magazine, Toronto)
Pochsy is a vulnerable, evocative character with the sublime, violent spirit of a cornered animal and the allure of a child. Pochsy violates the audience so sweetly you barely notice… Over the past 15 years, we’ve seen many new talents celebrated like the second coming of Christ only to disappear as soon as the media spotlight dimmed. Hines, though, is the real thing. (Denis Armstrong, Classical ’96)
Pochsy is a must-see, a blend of charm and vitriol who traipses blithely over mercury-traced waters. A master of direct address, able to entrance an audience with a simple stare, she skewers middle class aspirations and consumer obsessions with poison-tipped arrows and relentless slings.
(Christopher Winsor, Theatrum Canada)
This apocalyptic vision of Clara Bow and Betty Boop … is the most intriguing female creation to hit the stage in a long time… (Valerie Gregory, Edmonton Sun)
Pure poetry spun smooth as silk … Imagine Greek Tragedy by Betty Boop. (Pat Donnelly, Montreal Gazette)
Wicked, original and superb. (Denver Rocky Mountain News)
Nothing short of a miracle. I laughed. I cried. I called my friends. (Tim Walsh, Saint Paul Pioneer Press)
Press Quotes: Hello…Hello 1999-2010
Exquisitely crafted … seamlessly stylish and intellectually provocative. (Kate Taylor, Globe & Mail)
Soaring satire. Hines masterfully revitalizes clichés and perks up dialogue, while also subtly borrowing from works as diverse as La Boheme and The Gift of the Magi. **** (NOW Magazine)
The momentum and perspicacity of this inventive play is evident on the page. It is also obvious why Hines is lauded as one of the nation’s premier dramatists. (Ibi Kasick, Eye Weekly – Books)
Hines’s writing style has a seductive, lyrical quality that belies its political complexity – it’s like reading Japanese haiku and a nihilist treatise all at the same time. (Kamal Al-Solaylee, Eye Weekly)
Drama: Pilot Episode, 2012
Remarkable. We go from chic to cheek, from satire to melodrama, from soul of the mind to spirit in the veins… A magnificent play. (Bob Clark, Calgary Herald)
Hines is nothing if not an original – a twisted and consistently quotable satire. (Nestruck, Globe & Mail)
Hines is superb at depicting in a few words the despair of people who feel forced to live lives bereft of meaning … I can’t imagine a person in the Western world who would be left untouched by the great drama of souls Hines creates here. (Alex Rettie, Alberta Views)
Crawlspace, 2015-19
Hines’s performance is wonderful, but the real magic here is her writing. Crawlspace is full of incredible details and observations … darkly comedic and emotionally daring. Crawlspace is resistance theatre and it’s nothing short of inspiring. (Andrea Warner, The Georgia Straight)
The hyperbole of this setting is perfectly matched by Hines’ careful composure as a writer. There are certainly elements of schadenfreude in the appeal of Hines’ story, but she pushes its impact beyond shock value through sheer ability and mastery of her craft. (Carly Maga, Toronto Star)
One of the ten best productions of 2015. (Globe & Mail)
Savagely funny. NNNN (Glenn Sumi, NOW Magazine)
Like a Mike Holmes episode scripted by Franz Kafka. (J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe & Mail)
A wonderful piece of theatre created and delivered by a master of understatement to great effect. (Lynn Slotkin, The Slotkin Letter)
Hines’s story is about what happens when we let greed undermine decency—her character accuses herself of being credulous, but it’s much clearer that she was massively deceived… Fear not. Hines finds hilarity in darkness as surely as a pig finds truffles in the mud. (Colin Thomas)
All the Little Animals I Have Eaten, 2017-20
Hines is a spectacularly talented writer … a great mind, blended in with an academic’s emotional detachment and a depressive’s obsessiveness … all of it delivered in a stem-winding script. It’s a smart, funny, unforgettable journey … Hines’ wild mind shines. (Stephen Hunt, The Half-Step)
All the Little Animals premiere by the immensely talented and equally perceptive Karen Hines … gleefully drips satire. (Louis Hobson – Calgary Herald)
Absolutely, tragically hilarious. (Vicki Trask, Onstage Calgary)