The Last Mass at St. Casimir's Over the Tavern, Part III by Tom Dudzick

"A three-tissue comedy. You don't have to be Catholic to like this one. You just have to have lived in a family."

"Genuine warmth peeks through frozen Buffalo in The Last Mass at St. Casimir's. In this final entry in his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Dudzick strands his Polish American clan together and deftly brings them to closure. His narrative style, with its gentle comedy and drama emerging from retroactive conflicts, can seem old fashioned. Yet that suits its valedictory aims, and family audiences may consider Last Mass a wholly respectable blessing."

"In the third and last installment of his Over the Tavern trilogy, playwright Tom Dudzick once again gets it absolutely right in depicting his lakeside hometown. The production offers viewers generous doses of humor, drama and humanity neatly packaged within the unworldly microcosm of Dudzick's real life family facsimile, the Pazinskis."

"The exposition is flawless and the dialogue that defines the Pazinski family dynamic is great entertainment. Skipping and jumping from topic to topic, the desultory nature of the conversations creates their realism. And it's in these conversations that Dudzick is at his best. He masterfully postpones and delays information, making the audience wait for a punchline. It makes for a great way to spend a couple of hours."

"Last Mass works just fine as a standalone effort. Dudzick has peppered the proceedings with plenty of laugh lines. Anyone can readily see why he's referred to as 'the Polish-Catholic Neil Simon.'"