“A soaring, poetic play you’ll want to see twice.” – Observer
“This is a universal story about siblings, and the way they slide tectonically along and past each other. The two’s diverging and converging relationships are mined with exquisite structure and refinement, creating a poignant look at the ways family is built upon and elaborated… What Became of Us is a gift to immigrants and families; a play that begs to be performed by every possible diasporic group, and which will grow richer as different casts widen and deepen its truths.” – Theatre.ly
“A soaring, poetic play you’ll want to see twice... Memories are the fuel the show runs on, but what’s happening is no simple feat of recollection. Rather, like characters in Faulkner’s novels Q and Z seem to exhibit a form of hyperthymesia so that memories from dozens of years ago come back with athletic ease and acquire a vividness that makes them seem more real than the present moment... but Lotfi complicates the idea of disinterring the past by having his characters not remember – or deliberately elide – certain details: their full names, their precise country of origin… The vagueness is intentional. It makes the play roomy enough to accommodate different kinds of backstories, and different actors inhabiting Q and Z will emphasize different chords... What Became of Us is powerful enough to work as an elixir on one’s memory, no matter which cast is performing.” – Observer
“Shayan Lotfi’s touching 75-minute two-hander, seemingly set in a peaceful here and now, detail[s] the differing lives yet ultimately unbreakable bond between two siblings… This poetic work speaks to all of us who have had to navigate complicated familial relationships.” – CitiTourNYC
“Most affecting… it casts a certain spell… Lotfi will zero in [on] details as specific as the color of a door, while leaving nationality pointedly unstated… He has a clear grasp of character and an unsentimental eye for family conflict, such that you experience a kind of double vision, seeing Q and Z both as individuals and as part of larger repeated patterns. Over the years, the two siblings fight, stop talking and haltingly make their way back to each other. Lotfi doesn’t tie their lives up neatly, allowing the characters both pain and grace.” – Vulture
“A heartbreaker... a decades-spanning tale of two siblings in an immigrant family.” – New York Times
“Lotfi’s text stealthily shifts direction so that speech at seamlessly transforms into speech with as this sibling relationship evolves. It tells its own story of how memories are both a source of conflict and communion.” – TheaterMania