Review Roundup: What Did The Critics Think of JQA at Arena Stage?

JQA is running through April 14, 2019 at Arena Stage.

JQA is generously sponsored by the David Bruce Smith Foundation, Sue Henry and Carter Phillips and Susan and Steven Bralove, and is the recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award.

Complicated, passionate and difficult, John Quincy Adams was a brilliant diplomat, ineffectual one-term President and congressman known for his eloquence, arrogance and integrity. This unique, highly-theatrical play by award-winning playwright Aaron Posner (Stupid F**king Bird) imagines key confrontations between JQA and some of America's most dynamic figures: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, his own father, John Adams and more. At once provocative, haunting and hilarious, this power play challenges the way we think of our country, our government and ourselves.

Let's see what the critics are saying...

David Siegel, DC Metro: The four-member JQA cast is terrific. Rather than becoming bogged down into the dialogue or becoming ghosts on stage, each gives off distinct personalities with sparks of energy. The four are Jacqueline Correa, Eric Hissom, Phyllis Kay and Joshua David Robinson.

Rachael Goldberg, BroadwayWorld: Despite its serious, retrospective premise, one of the delights of JQA is that it's also quite funny - the show finds humor in most of its heavy subjects, and draws laughs from the audience as it winks at modern events and mindsets. As Posner notes in the playbill, the show is based on and rooted in historical information, but it's not an historically accurate play; I noted a few anachronisms and blatant references to events that hadn't yet occurred, which were only frustrating because they drew attention away from an otherwise strong show. Posner explains that the intention is to examine the political landscape we see today through the lens of the past, and the result is a smart play that speaks well to audiences without feeling preachy or losing its humanity.

Tim Treanor, DC Theatre Scene: JQA is rather uncompromising itself, in attacking one of liberal democracy's prime shibboleths - the reflexive use of compromise to engage all of the governed in our more perfect union. And in selecting that imperfectly successful man, John Quincy Adams, as the vehicle for that assault, Posner shows canny judgment, and buttresses it with good art.