CHRISTOPHER CARTMILL: Press

". . . a sophisicated, earthy piece . . . style meets with intelligence, adding a touch of enigmatic symbolism to keep the senses hopping . . ."

". . . LA CHASSE is a lush evocation of a lushly romantic era and is informed by the playwright's erudition, aesthetic sense and sensibility, and, certainly, his fascination with the complex figure of artist Eugene Delacroix. This is an artist about whom we don't hear a great deal about nowadays. Christopher Cartmill's play could send one scurrying to learn more about Delacroix, whose paintings and perhaps his life, capture and identify Romantic and turbulent aspects of his milieu.
. . . It cries out to become a big-budget movie or a television series a la masterpiece theatre."

". . . his abilities in writing satire are much needed right now, that combined with his deft characterizations are an excellent and marketable commodity."

". . . a compelling tale of one man at a turning point . . . a full and poignant character . . . Cartmill does a wonderful job of bringing to life. His finely nuanced performance makes the character of Peter Barton relatable. Peter is trapped between two worlds and Cartmill is able to bring his ever increasing awareness of this turmoil to life without resorting to heavy-handedness . . . Peter Barton and his struggles come across as entirely natural."

". . . Christopher Cartmill's performance, alone, is reason enough to see this intriguing play . . . and one of the delights of the theatre season."

". . . Christopher Cartmill is a performer of depth and wit."

". . . As the scheming middle son, Geoffrey, Christopher Cartmill is better than the playwright deserves. Rather than settling for being just pure evil, as the playwright has his parents describe him, Cartmill shows us how a devious Machiavellian mind is (or was) but a child who was his whole life 'treated with nothing more than indifference' by his parents and is still in need of some recognition or appreciation."

". . . David Zak was wise to cast a talented actor named Christopher Cartmill . . . Cartmill offers a genuinely charismatic performance that keeps Wild Honey from losing its sting."

". . . that way Christopher Cartmill, who plays Valmont, would have been free to give his extraordinary and charismatic performance . . . Cartmill's incredibly charming, seductive, and foppishly sexy Valmont seems far more likely to lead a woman astray. Cartmill all but slithers as he turns from on liaison to another, proving that he is truly the subtlest beast in the field."

". . . As the leading man, Christopher Cartmill evolves from an earnest twit into a disillusioned former team player; his final tumble down a staircase is rich with Chaplinesque pathos."

". . . But the really brilliant enactment in this production is Christopher Cartmill's portrayal of Garry Lejeune, the show's narcissistic male ingenue. Cartmill is a spitfire of nervous energy, comic timing and reverberating characterization, finding hitherto undiscovered neuroses in Frayn's lovable leading man."

". . . As an actor, Cartmill exudes loads of charm and charisma and possesses an ingratiating, winningly relaxed stage presence. Even when Light proves to be immature and petulant, Cartmill renders his creation palatable by playing him as a youthful Everyman with whom it's hard not to empathize."

"I always come away impressed from one of your plays, but last night I was even more deeply impressed by your range and command of short forms. Your plays showed a consummate command of timing and language and what I regard as an essential indifference to the portrayal of your own suffering (which showed elegantly enough through the bitter-sweetness and exactness of the language). VITAMINIZATION is a complete winner. So is ON THE PECULIARITY OF FEELING, and YOU AND A RAINY SUNDAY AFTERNOON opened my heart unexpectedly with its images of childhood. Recently I also have been viewing my life as if from the outside in, longing to remember when it was real, what was real. Thank you for giving me those images to recall when I'm feeling vaguely anxious."

"Quite by chance Wednesday morning, I came into the Engelhardt Court of the Metropolitan Museum of Art while actors Christopher Cartmill and Michelle Hurst were reading poetry as part of the Met's commemoration of 9/11.
I had gone to see the chalkboards used by fire-fighters from a local firehouse, nine of whom died Sept.11.
Sunlight streamed through the windows, gilding the 19th-century American sculpture there in an especially striking way. The poems and the performances were trememdously moving.
I found myself thinking back to those poems later that afternoon when I attended the third part of 'Brave New World, American Theater Responds to 9/11,' the project in which writers and actors contributed their talents in four programs . . . Many of the pieces . . . were collegiate, a reminder of what a limited intellectual palette our theater uses, a dispiriting contrast to poets I heard that morning."