The Wake

Writer/Actor Ben Moroski returns to Hollywood Fringe after taking a year off from his 2012 debut This Vicious Minute (review: here). His new one-man show (about a one-man show) centers on Pete Harrisburg, a damaged soul attempting to turn his pain into art by telling an audience about his most recent brush with love. Unfortunately, he’s in love with a corpse. Pete starts the play with an intense optimism that’s bound to waver under the weight of his story. Moroski judiciously chooses when to let the cracks show – deftly moving from confidence, to anger, to shame in an appropriately unhinged performance... Please read the rest of the review at <a href="http://cinesnatch.blogspot.com/2014/06/2014-hollywood-fringe-round-up-shame.html">Ci... full review

As soon as Ben Moroski enters the space as Pete, a substitute teacher doing a one-man show, you know that this man is cracked. Unlike Moroski, Pete is not a natural performer and as he starts to do his show about his ex-girlfriend he breaks down as starts to tell us about this new girl he met, well ran over and took home after a party. Moroski’s insane energy pulls you in as he recounts the weekend with his new love, who to us is clearly dead. Nick Massough’s direction keeps the story running at a manic pace while allowing the calm quiet moments seep into our bones. Moroski somehow managed to create a character so deranged and damaged but surprisingly and oddly sweet. It’s dark, twisted, strange, creepy and hilarious. Don’t miss it! - ... full review

Meticulous writing/storytelling skills paired with intense, raw, delivery are the hallmark of Ben Moroski as a talent. The Wake dubs him a de facto force to be reckoned with. Read the full review: http://giaonthemove.com/2014/06/29/fringe-up-the-wake/... full review

The Wake - review by Pauline Adamek. ***This review first appeared on www.ArtsBeatLA.com ***   At the beginning of his one-person play The Wake, Ben Moroski — posing as ‘Pete Harrisburg’ — rushes in, introduces himself with a self-deprecating “I’m the asshole doing this play,” and then hands audience members flyers for this show. Moroski thus places an important distance between him — the writer and performer — and the character’s tale that unfolds. A hyperactive guy in a black suit and thin tie with slicked-back hair, Pete gives us a bit of a prologue to ‘the play’ by illustrating his recent backstory and explaining how an actor’s workshop has helped him get through “the heavy shit.” So at first, we are invited to attend the ‘wake’... full review

Moroski is a force to behold. His character, Pete Harrisburg, is trying to get over a very bad break-up. Pete was so much in love that he almost stopped living when his girlfriend left him. Pete finds solace through theater and tries to work out his problems through a play. See the rest of the review at Examiner.com... full review

Explicitly descriptive and hyperkinetic, he puts the audience on edge — and that’s exactly where he wants it. Over the course of the next hour, Moroski takes us on an emotional roller coaster ride that gets darker at every turn.... full review

If it seems at times that everyone in Hollywood has his or her own story to tell (or at least an hour-long version of it), it’s a notion reinforced by the plethora of solo performances vying for attention at each year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival, meaning that when a solo performance arrives that is not an excuse for navel-gazing (sorry, make that self-reflection), it’s an event. Ben Moroski’s The Wake is such an event. It’s not that Moroski doesn’t have his own story to tell. He does, and told it to awards and acclaim two years back in This Vicious Minute. This time round, however, Moroski’s one-man show is a work of fiction, an honest-to-goodness play that just happens to star a single actor, though two characters feature majorly i... full review