Review excerpts

These are excerpts from published reviews of The Haint's various live performances. Where available, we've included links to the on-line source.

Reviews of our video

"The Haint [is] a one-man show that debuted at Seattle's annual Fringe Festival. Troy Mink, who wrote the play, took on 13 eccentric characters in a funny and skillful performance. It's a play I had actually seen live... The video allowed me to focus on Mr. Mink's very mobile face, which is the star of the show."

The Wall Street Journal (read the full review)

"...The Haint actually has more to say than what’s on the surface. The play cuts deep into America’s obsession with theme attractions and says a lot about how people capitalize on tragedy. It also looks at the way people view scandals and the paranormal and at how quickly people jump on and off a moving bandwagon. The Haint has been popular enough to spawn a spin-off piece based on one of the characters, but if you don’t live in Seattle, you probably couldn’t have seen it until now. Now there’s no excuse."

Apollo Guide (read the full review)

Reviews of the production shot by StageDirect

"...The Haint in Mink's able and quicksilver hands becomes a dazzling pantheon of Southern eccentrics.... we're fascinated by what Mink will do next with his rubber face, distinctive hand gestures and expressive voice."

The Oregonian (read the full review)

"...each one of Mink's characters is a believable individual.... Their voices, speech patterns, mannerisms and relationships to each other are all precisely defined. Each character is familiar but never the cheap stereotype, funny but not cartoonish. Mink's ability to switch from one character to the next, physically and vocally, is unfailing. Every time he makes a switch, we are aware instantly of which character is before us and, like any good character in any good story, we are glad to see them again."

Willamette Week (sadly, they don't archive old reviews on their site)

Reviews of other productions (also starring Troy Mink)

"[H]is characters [are] completely compelling and extremely funny. The Haint recounts the story of a brutal murder-suicide that leads to a ghost haunting the streets of Midway, Tennessee. The town's response is to capitalize on the ghost by building a hotel and haunted house for tourists, an idea that doesn't sit well with everyone and leads to unexpected results.... Don't let ghosts or one-man shows scare you off - Mink will charm and entertain you with his off-kilter world."

The Stranger (read the full review - scroll down their page a little)

"The Haint is scary in a loopy, will-o'-the wisp way, and very funny. With gentle affection, this uniquely talented actor lets the reality of Mary's spirit come alive...."

The Seattle Times (read the full review)

"Performed in the style of a documentary, the piece has the phenomenally talented Mink taking on the role of 15 different small-town eccentrics, whose varied accounts of the tragedy, and its after-effects, make the show a sort of comic Rashomon.

Mink's greatest skill as a solo performer is that his work is so subtle, so real, that oftentimes it's nothing more than a smile or a carefully placed gesture that differentiates one persona from another. His character work also contains such an emotional honesty that even at its most edgy and uncomfortable (the mentally disabled Stewart, for example), there's never a moment when you feel he sees his creations with anything less than love and respect."

Seattle Weekly

"The Haint is in the best tradition of haunting legends: a portrait of people coping with the backwaters of their own psyches in the guise of a ghost. It's a tight and funny piece of one-man theater as well…. The Haint tells its tale through a variety of extremely well-developed characters.

An old nurse named Mary - the best friend of Sister Opal and next-door neighbor to little Carlotta Philpott (the characters' names alone are almost worth the price of admission) - kills her man and herself because she thinks he's two-timing. Midway moves from terror of a post-mortal "Bloody Mary" to appreciation that her legacy could bring in the tourists....

From the sniveling mayor to the bitter, chain-smoking town atheist, Mink becomes them all, without any trouble in the transitions. During a séance scene, in total black with no gestures to help identify who was who, Mink performed a five-way panicked conversation, and I never had trouble distinguishing the speakers. That alone is a theatrical feat."

The Stranger (read the full review)

"Adventurously oddball chameleon Troy Mink brings back his one-man show in which he plays several citizens of a small Tennessee town who find their lives reinvigorated by the supposed appearance of a ghost.... Mink's physical characterizations lack the specificity of his vocal work, but when the vocal work is as stunningly adept as it is here it hardly matters. His people, both hilarious and strangely tender, possess more than just quirky Southern tics: They have the breadth and warmth of humanity."

Seattle Weekly (read the full review)