"Paul Rodrigues is outstanding as Jack Kerouac. As he enters the stage with his wrinkled trench coat, smoking a cigarette, he actually morphs into Kerouac. The role demands rapid dialogue tempos and frazzled physical action, and he skillfully provides them all. Rodrigues brings a certain boyish charm to the teenager as well as self-assurance and audacious flamboyance."
"Jack himself is played by Paul Rodrigues, a talented local force who has appeared in other FaultLine productions, and he is in top shape in Maggie’s Riff. He has the athletic build to slip easily into the role of Kerouac, whose abilities on the field were his first ticket out of Lowell, MA, as a running back recruit for Columbia University, but Rodrigues does not carry forward the emphasis on physical acting that he has had in the past. He inhabits instead a tortured mental world, in which he is racked by competing emotions and a lack of purpose. This pensive melancholy imaginably sat on the real Kerouac’s frame with the same violent awkwardness that it does now on Rodrigues’, the haunting juxtaposition of existential dread and self-destruction against the unmistakable lines of a body built for speed and physical accomplishment."
"Rodrigues plays Kerouac as a world weary, troubled soul who looks back nostalgically on the blurred facts of his youth. It’s a tour de force performance that demands quick dialogue rhythms and jittery physical action."
"The guy who played Jack Kerouac (Paul Rodrigues) was insane – incredibly talented. The show was over an hour, he was on stage pretty much the entire time, and his high-energy kept the audience with him. Mad props. [...] His acting was on point. I really enjoyed the way he switched between young Jack, and old Jack. It was seamless but you could feel the shift in energy between the two. His physicality gave you a sense that he went through some crazy shit in the intervening years. In general I think they did a great job with casting. The whole cast really looked like they fit the time period."
"With an uncanny resemblance to early, 1940s photographs of the real Jack Kerouac, dark-browed, solid-cheeked Paul Rodrigues dives into the role of the writer and performer with inspired insight, intensity, and ingenuity. As the sixteen-year-old Jack, he brings both attractive bashful, ‘aw shucks’ boyishness as well as brass, bold, and ballsy flamboyance. Rarely have I seen a more fiercely athletic performance as he runs in-place with spinning, sweat-inducing steps as the star of a track meet or as he throws his body to the ground or against a wall in teenage tumble and angst. When palling around with his best bud, Mouse, he is a jumping jack of energy and crazy moves and a constant flow of wisecracks, friendly punches, and big bear hugs with his bro. When trying to woo the older, seventeen-year-old Maggie, he is awkward and shy yet persistent and persuasive as he maneuvers toward that first kiss (something she actually makes happen to his total surprise and delight).
But as the older Jack who is reminiscing in a hazy dream that even he does not seem to quite know if it ever happened or not, Paul Rodrigues is particularly stunning in his portrayal."
