Eric Hissom Reviews

Eric Hissom

Actor - Director - Playwright

Eric Hissom Reviews

Cyrano - Folger Theater, Washington, DC, 2011

Translated by Michael Hollinger. Adapted by Michael Hollinger and Aaron Posner

"As Cyrano, Eric Hissom gives a tour de force performance. His work requires a careful balancing act – Cyrano must be tortured and charismatic, vulnerable and heroic – and Hissom never hits a false note. "
-Alan Zilberman, Brightest Young Things

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"As Cyrano,... Hissom is so effortlessly charming and authoritative....He’s so good, in fact, you almost can’t believe that this Cyrano’s inconveniently 3D schnoz would much impede him in romance..."

-Chris Klimek, Washington City Paper

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The 39 Steps

National Tour, 2009-2010

"The best performances of the play come from two men forced to play dozens of character of all backgrounds, occupations, and genders. Scott Parkinson and Eric Hissom, who has a history with Chicago theatre, are the real heroes of the play."

FULL REVIEW

-Scotty Zachar, Chicago Theater Beat

"...the show belongs to Hissom and Parkinson. You never know how they'll pull off their next quick change or who they'll show up as next."

-Michael Martin, EdgeMiami.com

"actors listed in the program only as Man #1 [Eric Hissom] and Man #2...responsible for all the supporting characters...these guys were a delight to watch. With clever costume changes, pitch perfect dialect shifts, and precise blocking, the performances carried off the show without a hitch."

FULL REVIEW

The Turn of the Screw

adapted for stage by Jeffrey Hatcher
Orlando Shakespeare Theater, 2010

"Hissom greets the audience first as a sort of malign narrator,...Then, in a tour-de-force performance, Hissom plays everybody else...".

FULL REVIEW
-Elizabeth Maupin On Theater

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Arcadia

written by Tom Stoppard
The Folger Theater, 2009

"... Eric Hissom's Nightengale is brusque and oily enough to alienate his friends, but not nearly enough to make us dislike him. The way he draws out Twyford’s own, more suppressed longings is an unflashy but keenly observed bit of binary performance."

- Chris Klimek, the dcist
FULL REVIEW

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MACBETH
Two River Theater Company, 2008
The Folger Theater, 2008

Two River Theater Company Review
"Then there’s the “Knock-knock! Who’s there?” routine of Eric Hissom as the Porter. Even if Shakespeare’s bumbling porters leave you cold, this splash of sunshine in an evening shrouded in red and black proves a welcome diversion."
- Naomi Siegel, The New York Times

The Folger Theater Review
"...Macbeth's weird sisters...one of them, Eric Hissom, does double duty as a drunken porter, whose audience interactions provide much-needed gross out comic relief...."
- Missy Frederick, The DCist

FAITH HEALER
Banyan Theater, Sarasota Florida, 2007
Directed by Chris Dolman

"Hissom is mesmerizing as the mercurial Hardy. His characterization of the faith healer is alternately charismatic and despicable. Like any gifted artist, Hardy defines himself by his gift. ...Hissom nailed it."
-Marty Fugate, Sarasota The Observer

"...Hissom commands the stage with his constantly changing, delicately nuanced voice and body language that reveal as much about the troubled Frank as his dialogue. He is superb in a role that ranges from intense suffering to arrogant blustering."
-Wayne Barcomb, Pelican Press

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CRUSOE
ORLANDO SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL, 2006
Adaptation Written by Jim Helsinger
Directed by Michael Carleton

"... You feel for Hissom's lonely Crusoe, who is so eager to communicate that even his own journal is his salvation."

"Hissom digs deep inside this man to find both the self-important European colonialist of his time and an iconoclast who rails at a God in whom he can't believe.... It's a tireless performance, yet what's most interesting is some of the quieter moments -- the look in Hissom's eyes, say, when Crusoe looks at his old world in a startlingly new way. . . ."
-THEATER REVIEW
by PETER P. ROCCHIO

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OTHELLO
Orlando UCF Shakespeare Festival, 2005

"But if evil can be orgasmic, it is Eric Hissom's Iago that will do it to you.... Hissom's performance is pitch-perfect, leaving tingles of fear resonating in your body at appropriate moments."
-Matthew MacDermid, Talkinbroadway.com

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PRIVATE LIVES
Orlando UCF Shakespeare Festival, 2004
Directed by Pat Flick

"...Hissom, who seemed like an odd choice for the role, makes Elyot the most fully formed character onstage, a suave man whose uncertainties are boiling just beneath the surface, a man hilariously possessed..."
- Elizabeth Maupin, Orlando Sentinel