PRESs
NINE NIGHT | U.S. Premiere, Round House Theatre | Dir.: Timothy Douglas | Playwright: Natasha Gordon (2022) Photo Credits: Margot Schulman Photography
The Washington Post
“In director Timothy Douglas’s engrossing production for Round House, the marvelous Lilian Oben makes Lorraine the soul of “Nine Night. Her voice strained, her face and movement radiating numbed determination, Lorraine tramps around in humdrum house clothes, having, as a caregiver, put vanity on hold, and trying to do the same with emotion. She’s a heartbreaking presence…”
Metro Weekly
“But it’s the calm in the midst of the storm — Gloria’s adult daughter, Lorraine — who draws attention, and who, in Lilian Oben’s galvanizing performance, feels achingly true and knowable.”
DC Theatre Arts
Nine Night …artfully explores the tensions of inhabiting two cultures, the inescapable bonds of family, and the many layers of grief, shame, and ultimate spiritual liberation through the exhausted eyes of Lorraine, played to raw emotional perfection by Lilian Oben.
Washington City Paper
“…Lilian Oben leads the cast with dynamic and emotive melancholy. Oben stands out with intense heart and desperation in every choice her character makes.”
“(Lilian) Oben does more with a glance, pause, or terse “Hmph” than others manage with a lot of hand-waving hamminess.”
Intimate Apparel, Orlando Shakespeare Theater | dir. Shonn McCloud | Playwright: Lynn Nottage. Photo Credits: Tony Firriolo
Orlando Sentinel
“The production’s linchpin is actor Lilian Oben, who grounds Esther in a plain-spoken desire to find a ‘life worthy of words’.”
Orlando Sentinel
“(Lilian) Oben doesn’t ask the audience to pity Esther, but theatergoers are sure to sympathize with her. She carefully and beautifully finds ways to make a prim character warm and strong”
Murder on the Orient Express, Everyman Theatre | dir. Vincent Lancisi | Photo Credits: Teresa Castracane Photography
Baltimore Style
“Lilian Oben is scene-stealing glamorous as Countess Andrenyi, who is also a doctor. I also love that the Countess just happens to have her medical bag with her on the train. Ah, the fun of a murder mystery.”
DC Metro Theatre Arts
The rest of the cast, too, is at the top of their game, getting into the ‘30s spirit with elegance and a touch of screwball… Lilian Oben is coolly capable and as slinky as a Ziegfeld chanteuse portraying Countess Andrenyi.
The Crucible, Olney Theatre | dir. Eleanor Holdridge | Photo Credits: Stan Barouh
DC Metro Theatre Arts
“Lilian Oben is spectacular as Tituba, the Barbados slave who is bullied into admitting witchcraft and naming others. It would have been lovely to see more of her.”
The Melancholy Play, Constellation Theatre Company | dir. Nick Martin | Photo Credits: DJ Corey Photography
Metro Weekly
“Desiring Tilly delivers a pleasurable shock to the ladies’ systems that… (Lilian) Oben conveys especially well with her richly arch turn — her lingering pause or side-eye would make Eve Arden proud.”
Brightest Young Things
“As British nurse Joan, Lilian Oben is brisk and efficient, with a hilarious deadpan; her stare could stop a train.”
Antigonick, Taffety Punk Theatre | dir. Kelsey Mesa | Photo Credits: Teresa Castracane Photography
DC Theatre Scene
“Lilian Oben’s Antigone is complex and wildly compelling, mad with grief and yet grounded in a logic of love and justice on her own terms. Oben allows Antigone to be young, vulnerable, and afraid without wavering in her strength and conviction. Her casting as one of only two black actors in the production forefronts the unequal distribution of punishment in the play.”
DC Theatre Arts
“In Oben’s deeply felt performance we get at gut level Antigone’s determination to give her dishonored dead brother a decent burial despite the petty edict of the king, and we get viscerally the tragic price Antigone pays for her loyalty and resistance.”