“Performer Ross Travis doesn’t play many easy parts. Whether he’s marching around Angel Island and flying at the top of a mast with the site-specific theater company the We Players or rollicking with Nathaniel Justiniano in Naked Empire Bouffon’s latest show, You Killed Hamlet! (which is touring to international Fringe festivals this year), he is undoubtedly getting a rigorous workout. He can contort his face and body into silly, grotesque positions in farcical satire, yet he can also deliver Shakespeare with the crisp clarity and deep sense of character that makes you remember how funny the Bard can be.”
– Lily Janiak, SF Weekly
“A penultimate scene involving Calypso (a funny Caroline Parsons), a beach party on a gorgeous beach and the god Hermes (Ross Travis) in a speedboat is a hoot.”
– Chad Jones, SF Chronicle
“Ross Travis’ Cyclops is a comic marvel. Squatting and licking his lips behind a mask reminiscent of Toxic Avenger, he lasciviously pets (and milks!) a stuffed-animal lamb, gulps down Barbie dolls, and vomits all over the audience.”
– Lily Janiak, SF Weekly
“Among the standouts in the all-around versatile, clearly dedicated ensemble are Nathaniel Justiniano, Ross Travis, Caroline Parsons and Julie Douglas.”
– Leslie Katz, SF Examiner
“… well worth watching on any stage.”
– Nicole Gluckstern, The Performant
“… vile and provocative, but it’s also a very sly, smart commentary on a culture busily amusing itself as it slides off this mortal coil, too afraid to talk about serious things, and too busy dumbing itself down.”
-John Marcher, A Beast In A Jungle
“…the acutely confrontational performance style makes the San Francisco Mime Troupe look like a bunch of old biddies gathering for afternoon tea. Highly recommended.”
-George Heymont, Huffington Post
“…the excellence of the piece lies in the [Bouffons’] ability to bring the high falutin subject matter down to its knees, only to raise it up again, somehow more reverently than ever before.”
-Stuart Bousel, Co-founder of San Francisco Theater Pub
“It is a rare and needed opportunity to experience a bouffon duo with such incredible complicity and virtuosity. You Killed Hamlet is a joy ride of vice and provocation. These two tricksters dare their audience to go unscathed. We are revealed and called out while we howl with pleasure. A must see!”
-Adam Lazarus, Artistic Director TFoC, Faculty at National Theatre School of Canada
