There’s one great idea behind “Cocaine Dreams”—a surrealistic new play by Howard Pflanzer.

Director Lissa Moira had the inspired notion of having an actress (Jill Simon) portray the drug, behaving as a highly seductive mistress.

For comic relief (more directorial touches), there are scenes in which performers unexpectedly appear, lip-synching to vintage recordings that seem to comment on events in the show.

—Chip Deffa

His highly talented director, Lissa Moira, has long been known for her ability to provide constant action on stage, which she does here. And in Cocaine Dreams she has aided
the author even more by inventing a mute female character named Coca, the personification of cocaine; Coca provides
the ideal link between the two chief plot lines as she hangs
on and leans on and sits on each character when he is in the grip of the drug.

—Stewart H. Benedict

Cocaine Dreams is a consistently stimulating admixture of piercing human examination and surreal burlesque. Lissa Moira’s direction illuminates the work with a bold compellingly vivid, yet always exactly measured theatricality.

—John Michael Koroly