Washington Post
"The Hostage" is a rowdy piece of theater, full of boozy ballads and woozy Irish patriotism. ... George Lucas’s dilapidated two-level set fits naturally amid the bare brick walls of the Church Street Theater, where the cast captures the after-hours flavor of fightin’, fergivin’ and hoistin’ a glass. ... What works is the cast of 18, lounging, bickering and singing with defiance that moves from devil-may-care toward a glimpse of hell. The show roughly divides between the tunnel-visioned -- say, Kevin Adams as the kilt-wearing old warrior Monsewer, or Jane Petkofsky as the religiously inflamed Miss Gilchrist -- and the more louche and broad-minded denizens of the brothel. Michael Innocenti’s semi-drag turn as Rio Rita makes a particularly droll impression even before his entrance in a coconut-shell brassiere. The whole cast, including lovebirds Carolyn Agan and Joe Baker (the sweet-faced hostage), orbits dizzily around Jourdan’s beaming Pat. ... The well-judged songs drive the high spirits, the flamboyant melancholy, and the cold slap when, at last, it’s time to sober up." - Nelson Pressley
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DC Theatre Scene
"A wonderful production ... Dave Jourdan is as good as I’ve ever seen him ... a huge cast in high good humor, and at a riotous pace. Jourdan plays a mean guitar and captures all the melancholy of Ireland with his tin whistle.  ... The songs are about love, and grief, and Ireland, and drink and the Church and death - in short, about the experience of being Irish in the last, or any other, century. They are so infectiously lively that it would be unnatural for the singers not to dance, so they whirl each other across the stage with fearsome abandon (Melissa-Leigh Douglass is responsible for the impeccable choreography). ... the show is terrific ... Director Mark Rhea has done the best work I have ever seen him do. Without ever distracting us from the main story, actors in every dim corner of the stage deepen their character through motion and silent gesture. Brothers and sisters, that’s good theater."  -Tim Treanor
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Washington City Paper
"...it’s encouraging to see Keegan succeed once again with The Hostage, a show whose theatrical bones are anything but bare.  ... Music unites these characters and gives them solace, and it does so in ways that poverty and politics can’t touch. Dave Jourdan gives full, three-dimensional life to Pat, the jovial patriarch at the center of the action, but it’s his work as the production’s musical director that’s responsible for the evening’s biggest payoff: a stirring, full-throated rendition of “The Auld Triangle” by the entire cast ...Dan Martin’s lighting suffuses the onstage tableau with a touch of the divine..." -Glen Weldon
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Metro Weekly
"a rowdy mix of music and politics ... Jourdan is an affable and magnetic host and is ably supported by the powerful presence of Herren. The two have strong singing voices and easy, natural stage manners. They melt quite comfortably into their roles. ... In spite of its obvious volume and vigor, The Hostage also offers ideas upon which the audience is meant to contemplate ..." -Tom Avila
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