Press
FROM REVIEWS OF THE PLAY THE COMMISSION
The 2007 New York International Fringe Festival
“People do horrible things during times of war and Fechter zeroes in on sexual atrocities and the way the perpetrator’s guilt can linger, poisoning his life well after the crime was committed. It’s easy to appreciate The Commission from a technical point of view. Fechter’s scenes start off innocently enough, but he soon gets the ball rolling, continually escalating the conflict and showing the flip-flop of power between the characters. This creates engaging tension and it is genuinely fun to see how each character will try to take power back from each other.”
- ROBERT ATTENWEILER, nytheatre.com
”This absorbing new play at the Fringe Festival by Steven Fechter (The Woodsman) caught me by surprise: after the first scene I was sure I knew where it was going (political intrigue) and then it went somewhere else (sexual warfare) and then somewhere else again.. . . this is a highly recommended production of a striking new play that is sure to linger in the memory of anyone who sees it.”
– PATRICK LEE, justshowstogoyou.blogspot.com
“Fechter’s script bares its teeth here . . . from the vicious molars to the subtle, delayed wisdom teeth. It’s also no surprise that the fangs come out at a moment when the play is furthest from the war: The Commission makes the biggest statement about objectivity and passivity by branding victimization and violence into what is otherwise a domestic scene. Look, it says: if we can do this in our own bedrooms, to those we supposedly love, what won’t we do to those anonymous strangers we know nothing of and care nothing for?”
– AARON RICCIO, New Theater Corps
FROM REVIEWS OF THE PLAY THE LAST CIGARETTE
The Lounge Theatre, Los Angeles, 2006
“In this darkishly delicious slice of life, staged in film-noir wrappings, we are privy to a chance meeting of two lost and wanting souls, about to collide like two sinking ships passing in the night…. In his directorial debut, Joey Tuccio… seems to have a genuine grasp on playwright Steven Fechter’s understated tensions, softened by subtle and offhandish playful stylizations.”
– DAVE DEPINO, Backstage West
”The banter that ensues is so witty and well delivered that it rivals Nick and Nora’s clever chatter in The Thin Man. Still, there is more to this play than playwright Steven Fechter’s crackling dialogue…. A darkness lurks beneath the shiny surface of this charming flirtation, a darkness that subtly and accurately reveals the potency of human desire.”
– STEPHANIE LYSAGHT, LA Weekly
“Written by Steven Fechter,The Last Cigarette is a brooding, moody and tantalizing exploration into the motives of why people say and do the things they do when playing the mating game. Folded between layers of metaphors, the language is seductive, the acting is riveting and the characters are modern incarnations of the great actors of the past in their great movies of yesteryear.”
— Reviewplays.com
FROM REVIEWS OF THE FILM THE WOODSMAN
“Director and co-scriptwriter (with Steven Fechter, who wrote the play) Nicole Kassell has fashioned a cool, minimalist and absolutely terrific little film called The Woodsman…This is a very small film, easy to overlook among the end-of-the-year behemoths. Do not do so. It is among the best and most delicately managed films of the year.”
— RICHARD SCHICKEL, Time Magazine
“The movie is the first film by Nicole Kassell… who wrote the screenplay with Steven Fechter, based on his play. It is a remarkably confident work… “The Woodsman”… succeeds as more than just the story of this character. It has relevance for members of the audience who would never in any way be even remotely capable of Walter’s crime.”
— ROGER EBERT
“This unsettling yet redemptive drama depicts its protagonist as a man in a cage, as much a victim as an architect of his obsession… Adapted by Kassell and Steven Fechter from the latter’s play, the film is an uncommonly challenging narrative examination of the pedophile mindset, going far deeper than similarly nuanced, yet more distancing portraits such as Dylan Baker’s character in “Happiness” or Brian Cox’s in “L.I.E.”
— DAVID ROONEY, Variety
”Steven Fechter’s play about a pedophile’s halting re-entry into society demands both delicacy and moral firmness… Thanks in large part to a career performance by star Kevin Bacon, rookie filmmaker Nicole Kassell defies conventional wisdom. We root for her protagonist’s recovery and redemption without ever forgetting his crimes… “The Woodsman” reminds us that any soul, even the most troubled, might be worth saving.”
– CHRISTIAN TOTO, The Washington Times
“One of the better independent films of 2004… If the key to such a film is making the man sympathetic while the crime remains unspeakable, Kassell, Bacon and co-writer Steven Fechter succeed triumphantly.”
–JOHN ANDERSON, Newsday
“The Woodsman” is not to be missed… Kassell and Fechter, who collaborated on the screenplay… give filmgoers a firsthand glimpse of a sex offender who isn’t a monster but a man, albeit one who is afflicted with a grievous obsession.”
— ANN HORNADAY, The Washington Post
