Press
Happy Days
"Still, director Patrick Walsh has delivered a striking production." - Rose Wong at Willamette Week
"The timing that Kondrat and Walsh create – with some piquant humor from Chris Porter as the seldom-seen husband, Willie – allows for both momentum in the performance and reflection for the audience." - Marty Hughley at Oregon ArtsWatch
"Portland’s hottest theater venue is the abandoned Victoria’s Secret in the Lloyd Center mall" - Samantha Swindler at The Oregonian
"Director Patrick Walsh joins us to talk about the production and the theatre’s mission, along with lead actress Diane Kondrat, who’s on stage for the entire 90-minute play." - Oregon Public Broadcasting, Think Out Loud
Antigone
"Walsh wanted to stage a translation of Antigone that didn’t dismiss its heroine. That ruled out Seamus Heaney’s 2004 version The Burial at Thebes, which Walsh says is overly welded to Creon’s perspective. “He makes it much more about Creon’s struggle internally and with his family, rather than Antigone’s story,” he says. “In the English-speaking world, that has largely become the template for what that play is.”
Rejecting that template, Walsh chose Anne Carson’s 2012 translation, which amplifies the feminist fire of Sophocles’ original text by focusing on what Walsh describes as “Antigone’s journey to self-actualization through a patriarchal structure.”' - Oregon Arts Watch
An Iliad
smokefall
"In general, Walsh gets a handle on Haidle’s challenging script, highlighting phrases and gestures planted throughout the text like thematic breadcrumbs (pay attention to the weight behind a forehead kiss and who says “See you in a minute” to whom). Big chewy themes get considerable, careful stage time, and some insights rattle (“The greatest possible act of courage is to love, and anyone who says different is an asshole,” for instance). - PDX Monthly
""Smokefall," whose Portland premiere runs through Nov. 16 at Defunkt Theatre, has drawn comparisons to "Our Town" for its unnamed commentator, self-awareness and moments of intense sincerity, but the play's muse is more Anton Chekhov than Thornton Wilder. Haidle's existentially adrift characters and grimly whimsical tone recall "The Cherry Orchard" or "Three Sisters,"- The Oregonian
"Walsh has taken on what must have seemed like an impossible task at the beginning and molded it into quite an engaging piece of theatre. And his cast pick is amazing, as I couldn’t image anyone else in these roles. - Dennis Sparks Reviews
Three Sisters
"This production is Patrick Walsh’s baby — he directs and co-produces and adapted Chekhov’s script — and it’s something of a triumph...Walsh’s production reveals Three Sisters as something beyond both: funny and tragic and existential to its core; a play beyond summation, an immersion in the chaos of life, a place where love is everything and everything isn’t enough." - Oregon ArtsWatch
"Walsh (has) found the deep unease at the core of Chekhov’s play, and let it speak for itself. There is much talk in Three Sisters of a better future somewhere over the horizon, and an implicit recognition that that might be a pipe dream, and an unstated assumption that the political is a reflection of a deeper state of being in the culture. That deeper level is what interests Chekhov, and Walsh. There’s a bit of Beckett to this play and this production: I can’t go on; I must go on." - Oregon Arts Watch
"So, yes, the play is a bit of a bummer. But it's a fascinating bummer, and definitely worth a watch for anyone who may feel like we as a country are stuck in some pretty deep muck, with no clear path out. It's instructive because, despite the fact that all of the characters are miserable, none of them takes any steps toward change. The sisters likely could go to Moscow (18 miles isn't that far), if they ever actually tried. They all have the power to change their situation, and they don't, except Natasha, who knows what she wants and does what she needs to do to get it. I'm not saying we should all model ourselves after Natasha, but we certainly can learn the lesson that if we want change, we have to take action...Overall, Three Sisters is a great play, and now is a great time to see it." - Broadwayworld.com
"This is, without a doubt, one of the best ensembles I’ve seen in over 500 plays I’ve reviewed! The cast, to a person, is very convincing in the roles they played and the three sisters themselves are etched in my psyche as setting the bar for acting a notch higher! Walsh has outdone himself with the casting, designing and adapting of this production." - Dennis Sparks
Troilus&Cressida
"Walsh takes full advantage of his arcane material, making trims and tweaks that might upset only Shakespeare superfans. He's dropped half of the dramatis personae, snipped speeches and altered the ending...But the production is not only a less ambiguous, energized version of Shakespeare's play -- it also highlights a prescient perception of the violent toxicity of hypermasculinity." - The Oregonian
"Though Shakespeare restrains his title characters, Walsh uses their sparse moments as part of a larger, convincing disquisition on bullying, sexual intimidation and rape. (Verbs we still use, "hectoring" and "pander," may be rooted in the play.) One of the ways soldiers goad Achilles back into battle is by threatening Achilles' male lover, Patroclus. Theirs is probably the most clearly drawn same-sex pairing in the canon. Rather than exploiting the relationship as trendy, taboo-busting theater, the director connects the couple to the broader theme. This may not have been the Bard's intention, but it sure works dramatically." - The Oregonian
"Shakespeare's Trojan War tragedy is infamously bizarre and ambiguous. But this production is helmed by one of Portland's most trusted Shakespeare directors..." - Wilamette Week
Richard III
"Director Patrick Walsh takes an Occam’s razor to Richard III, which could call for scores of cast members, is tuned down to 7. The production is crisply skewed like the psychology of a person who can’t see beyond their pain. Walsh works with people who have cerebral palsy and takes the play back to the nature vs nurture debate of motivations. He casts a sympathetic and sophisticated eye on the interior life of Richard. He keeps Richard’s ornate duplicity, much like the armor that would’ve hid his real life disfigurement." - Oregon ArtsWatch
"Walsh uses the whole stage like a Dada chessboard with a film noir sensibility and the lighting casts long shadows as Welles’ Citizen Kane. The scene transitions aren’t hidden with smoke and mirrors, rather intricate opportunities which magnify character’s personalities. The psychological nightmares also hang on Walsh’s choice to keep lines that create a rhythm of themes: Richard’s braced arm, the alabaster arms of the innocent princes who are delivered to the arms of Abraham which cradle them in death." - Oregon ArtsWatch
"For Shakespeare diehards, Richard III may have become too familiar. Yet Post5's take on Richard and his colorful circle of enemies is so inventive that even viewers who have heard Richard rage about "the spleen of fiery dragons" countless times may feel as if they're being overpowered by the play for the first time." - Willamette Week
"Post5 Theatre's Richard III bursts with all the bloodlust and political gamesmanship you'd expect. Yet Post5 justifies reviving Shakespeare's centuries-old text by making it feel as surreal and terrifying as a horror film." - Willamette Week
"Red is beautifully written and ably directed by Patrick Walsh who gets the most out of his actors...Tension rises and falls." - The Inquirer and Mirror
Henry V
“What I’m really interested in exploring is the creation of an entire world through language,” Walsh said. “The set itself will be covered with words from the play, while the costumes are of period. The focus is on the ensemble and the creation of the play with this group of individuals, who are working incredibly hard to bring [the community] an amazing production.” - San Diego Union Tribune
Look Homeward, Angel
"Director Patrick Walsh makes clever use of limited space, maneuvering 14 cast members, and easily distinguishes both the Dixieland Boarding House and W.O. Gant’s marble shop." - Capital Gazette
"Director Patrick Walsh uses the space to naturally enliven action. Rooms are created smoothly in onstage scene changes that become part of the drama while avoiding interruptive dark time. When older son Ben suffers a debilitating illness, his bedroom is created at center stage before audience members, drawing them in and heightening drama." - Baltimore Sun
"Most notably, Walsh has assembled a cast of 14 ideally suited to their roles, from a boy who forms a bond of friendship to a parent who values her boarders' comfort over her child's needs. Some form tenuous friendships, others experience isolation." - Baltimore Sun
"Director Patrick Walsh has a perceptive understanding of how to create a world inside a very intimate space." - DC Metro
HowlRound Article
"I’d been so busy trying to hustle and live on my theatre work that I had forgotten the prime tenet that drives my life: everyone deserves great art." - See more at: http://howlround.com/a-year-of-directing-dangerously