ZERO HOUR – NATIONAL REVIEWS

"I was knocked out by his brilliant performance -
you sit back knowing you are being entertained by a master!"
                                                                                                             - Dom DeLuise

LOS ANGELES TIMES - Critics Choice
by F. Kathleen Foley
Zero Hour captures Mostel's rich contradictions in a loving but unvarnished homage as entertaining as the man himself. Jim Brochu seems almost fatefully destined to play Mostel. Brochu reintroduces us to the funny, fantastically contrary Mostel in all his biting intelligence and imperfection.

THE WASHINGTON POST
by Peter Marks
Zero Hour has the virtue of verisimilitude and Jim Brochu amply brings the hero to Zero. With his ample frame, expressive eyes and hair forced forward to cover a thinning scalp, Brochu looks spookily like his subject, for whom he's written the piece as a heart-engraved valentine. The vocal inflections, too, are absolutely impeccable. If you close your eyes, you'll swear you hear the Mostel of Brooklyn and Broadway, the late star who forever put a stamp on two of the plum roles of musical comedy's golden age: Tevye the Milkman in "Fiddler on the Roof" and Pseudolus, the conniving Roman slave, in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." Aping Mostel's impish charm -- those rolling rogue's eyes! -- and replicating his surefire timing, Brochu proves to be a worthy keeper of Mostel's outrageous flame.

WASHINGTON TIMES
by Jayne Blanchard
Actor and writer Jim Brochu has the size — physical and emotional — of Zero Mostel in his funny and piercing one-man show, Zero Hour, playing at Theater J under the astute direction of actress Piper Laurie. Zero Hour portrays Mr. Mostel being interviewed in his art studio by an unseen New York Times reporter who tries to separate fact from fanciful fiction and also concentrates on the comedian's laughless years when he was blacklisted in the 1950s following his refusal to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Even here there are hilarious moments, including a near-verbatim depiction of his appearance in front of the committee, showing Mr. Mostel as the ultimate canny provocateur. For all the humor born out of bitterness, there also are equal amounts of bigheartedness and deep empathy.  Mr. Brochu captures Mr. Mostel's thundering bravado — the florid language, extravagant gestures, the wagging brows and glowering stare, the way the comedian could never pass up a pun. The low humor is abundant, but so are the high ideals. Mr. Mostel claims to have come from nothing, but Zero Hour affirms his worth as both an actor and a man.

FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL
by Bill Hirschman
A volcano explodes nightly in the Broward Stage Door Theater, spewing flame and lava over the audience without benefit of special effects. Brochu becomes a force of nature at the end of the first act as Mostel rages at the obscene damage inflicted by the 1950s blacklist. As both playwright and actor, Brochu has nailed the essence of this difficult but brilliant chameleon who could be tender and terrifying, playful and combative, all in the space a few seconds. Directed by Piper Laurie, Brochu and Mostel are terrific company.

HOUSTON CHRONICLE - Critics Choice
by Everett Evans
Stages' Zero Hour channels Mostel's volatile presence. It’s entertaining and consistently funny thanks to a steady stream of jokes that are potent and expertly delivered. Brochu commands the stage channeling Mostel's wild mood swings, crazy humor and righteous anger.  He is self-pitying, ridiculous, exasperating and inspired.

SHOW MAGAZINE
by Joseph Feinstein
Brochu bats a thousand with Zero Hour. The swagger, ferocity, anger, frustration, but mostly the comedic genius of Samuel "Zero" Mostel as played by Jim Brochu. Mostel seems to inhabit Brochu, and that force, those big eyes, that hammering voice is all evident in this excellent portrayal. At no time can you look away, for you are   mesmerized by Brochu's words, gestures, and eye contact. Mr. Brochu has created a hit which will be received with rapt audience attention anywhere he plans to take the show. Zero always felt he was "the third choice" by producers when they needed an actor. I can assure you this play should be your first choice for exquisite theater.                                                

BACKSTAGE WEST
by Wenzel Jones
The initial, almost startling appearance of Jim Brochu in the role of Zero Mostel, so calls to mind a Hirschfeld caricature of the great comic actor that there is no need for a window of time during which the audience decides whether or not it will accept one distinctive actor playing another. Brochu creates a character that never fails to engage whether or not you know anything about Mostel. His performance is like a painting – a dab of bluster, a wash of insecurity and vibrant fields of talent and charisma applied to a sturdy canvas of humanity which create a rich portrait of the man.

THEATREMANIA.COM
by Les Spindle
The multi-talented Brochu captures the all-important wild-eyed look and the actor's idiosyncratic outbursts are fully credible. Zero Hour’s mix of comedy, tragedy, showbiz history, and nostalgia -- results in a fresh and inventive piece.

VARIETY
by Julio Martinez
When Jim Brochu makes his entrance as Zero Mostel, he admirably embodies the flamboyance, mood swings and dead-on comic timing of this legendary yockmeister. He is at his best when demonstrating Mostel's ability to level an audience with his exquisitely executed emotional booby traps

SOUTH FLORIDA CARBONELL REVIEWS
by Robert Aldrytch
This one-man show is possibly, one of the most bravura performances I have ever seen, not only in South Florida, but on Broadway as well. To say that Brochu inhabits the character is an understatement. THIS is what theatre should be: serious, funny, and almost two hours where the audience is not being patronized but made to THINK! A hearty 10 out of 10.

WASHINGTON ARTS REVIEW
by Bob Anthony                                                                                                                
One person shows just don't get any better than this!  Jim Brochu is doing a biographical performance of Zero Mostel and he very capably carries the audience through laughter and tears and political and human terror to tell the very moving story of one of the greats of musical comedies and films.  His comedy timing is impeccable and his description of disappointments in Zero's life rings of universality especially the burial ceremony arranged by his orthodox parents for him in the synagogue because he married a "shicksa".  The play is well written as well and recollection references keep reoccurring for the listening audience...giving a wonderful clarification of the special people in Zero's life.   One is surprised to see that it is directed by Piper Laurie of movie fame...and she does a splendid job of moving the actor around the stage and giving Mr. Brochu appropriate pauses and other highlights to turn Mr. Brochu into a doppleganger of Mr. Mostel.  This is an award winning performance and every theater lover must see this marvelous show! 

EDGE MAGAZINE
 by Rebecca Thomas
Zero Hour is a prolific and ground-breaking performance. There is something refreshing about the simplistic format of the show. The entire performance is a one-man show in which Jim Brochu-the genius who wrote the play-plays the part of Zero Mostel, the self-professed "painter who had an acting habit.’ All of Zero Hour plays out in one place-Mostel’s art studio-and is set towards the end of his life. Never before have I seen a play which forced me to experience such as full range of emotions. I went from being hysterical with laughter at Mostel’s quips and childhood stories to being engulfed with fury at his recounting of the targeting of primarily Jewish performers by the House Committee for Un-American Activities (HUAC) to being consumed with despair at his telling of the sad fate of his friend Philip Loeb who committed suicide after losing everything from being Blacklisted-all in the course of two hours. At the end of the performance I was left feeling as though I needed to catch my breath, but in a good way. It is the measure of a truly gifted performer to be able to so thoroughly master his own facial expressions as Brochu has clearly learned to do. It is uncommon to find a play that can make you both laugh out loud and struggle to hold back tears with equal intensity. In this-and every respect-Zero Hour delivers. Five out of five stars for a rare gem of a play in which a brilliant actor is paired with the role he was born to play!

DC THEATRE SCENE
by Josh Fixler
A solo show is a difficult thing to pull off. It is a monumental task for one person to keep an audience engaged for a whole show, and the line between wonderful and dreadful is razor thin. But in Zero Hour, Jim Brochu proves he is well up to the challenge. He tackles the complex and contradictory life of Zero Mostel with a flourish that is captivating from the moment the lights come up. Brochu, who also wrote the script, brings this mammoth of the theater back to life  for one more night of thought provoking entertainment. His Mostel is both self-deprecating and everyone-else-deprecating. And, the best part is, all of this is hysterically funny. The writing is marvelously witty, with all sorts of Zero-isms that serve as delightful little breaks in the action.. Brochu does not sugarcoat or simplify but shows a man who is simultaneously strong and broken, a contradiction that I think summed up Mostel’s life. A character like Mostel is like a masquerade costume, intriguing on its own, but made enthralling by the person who wears it. Brochu dons this costume and fills it out in a way that keeps us all engaged. He shows him, not as a flawless caricature, but as a lively, broken, and enigmatic man. It is a night of deep thoughts and deeper belly laughs, and what could be better than that?

POTOMAC STAGES                                                                                                        
by Brad Hathaway                                                                                                            
Zero Hour is our critics pick for a highly polished explosion of humor and fury. 
Zero Hour is another of those magical transportations that live theater can impart - the chance to spend an evening in the presence of a person from the past. Brochu brings the man back to life, looking so much like a living, breathing (and bellowing) Al Hirschfeld sketch of the real thing that you suspect the streaks in his comb over spell out "Nina." That hurt and the resulting anger is at the heart of the story Brochu is telling here. Yes, there are all the funny stories of his successes and failures on the stage and, yes, there are the bursts of comic energy that were Mostel's trademark. But it is the story of his being blacklisted for his failure to tell the House Committee on Un-American Activities the details they demand about a meeting in Hollywood that took place years before he even came to California and his subsequent refusal to "name names" that give the piece substance. Throughout the performance, Brochu as Mostel dabbles in watercolor on a pad on his table. By the end, he has created a portrait. Oh, but by that time he has already created a portrait - of Zero Mostel. It is a chance to meet Mr. Mostel that is not to be missed.

WASHINGTON POST’S CITY EXPRESS                                                                                  
by Tim Follos                                                                                                                                            
Zero Mostel was hailed as the greatest performer on the American stage, but his star has receded since his 1977 death. Fortunately, Jim Brochu is putting Mostel's name in lights again, playing him with ferocious anger as well as with great joy. Even many who have heard of Mostel may not know he was a painter first. Brochu, looking like an insane Santa Claus, is wildly intense, expressive, manic and comic. Zero Hour is an assault of punch lines, many of which are wonderfully subtle or rely on Brochu’s dead-on, over-the-top animation. But the story has emotional heft as well, and is particularly focused on the Hollywood Blacklist and the subsequent suicide of Mostel's friend, fellow blacklist victim Philip Loeb. "Everyone who's excluded is angry," explains the volcanic Mostel near the play's end. "And then the door opens and I don't really want to go in."

THE JEWISH WEEKLY
Modern-day morality play
by Lisa Traiger 
The clown prince of Broadway was an angry man. Funny man Zero Mostel, it seems, had a bitter streak that adds heft and intrigue to actor, creator, writer Jim Brochu's one-man bio-drama, Zero Hour, which explores the life of the rubbery-faced actor. Brooklyn, N.Y. born Brochu has the oversize dimensions, literally the weight and heft, to carry off a more-than-believable Mostel impersonation. But Brochu offers more than an off-the-shelf impersonation of the character comedian with his bulgy eyes, grimaces, grins and groaners. At the end of 90 minutes, Brochu has become a reincarnation of the late, great Mostel, a one-of-a-kind stage  But Zero Hour goes beyond a dry study of the rise of a successful actor, lauded from Broadway to Hollywood. Brochu captures the intense fear and uncertainty of living through McCarthyism. The sting still resonates a half century after McCarthy. Most American Jews, indeed, as a community and individuals, feel completely at home in their multicultural 21st century country. But witch hunts of other sorts abound these days, whether from the conservative right or the liberal left -- just open up a newspaper to confront the political and cultural divisions that have bisected America just in the past few months. Brochu has wrought, aside from an uncanny impersonation of a larger-than-life man with googily eyes, great girth, a graying beard and slicked-down comb-over, a modern-day morality play that compels viewers to re-examine our own era for 21st-century witch hunts. Don’t miss a chance to see a star performance on the rise.

METRO WEEKLY - FOUR STARS
by Tom Avila
Jim Brochu's one-man show Zero Hour, the season opener at Theater J, takes that single transformative day in Mostel's life and uses it to tease open a biography that is as fascinating as it is startlingly rich. Heartfelt and humorous, Zero Hour exercises a pleasing restraint in its storytelling by using the simplest of frames. Mostel is in his painting studio, giving an interview to a New York Times reporter. The set-up allows Brochu to take full advantage of both Mostel's complex personal history and wildly entertaining, quirky public persona. He jokes, reminisces and reveals in a fashion that is natural and uncontrived. Brochu is an exceptionally talented writer and this play thrives because of his equal skills as an actor. He also manages the difficult act of investing in the life of an iconic figure without needlessly romanticizing him. Brochu gives us the truth of the moment and the man, and allows those echoes to resonate satisfyingly in our own time.

ARLINGTON WEEKLY NEWS TV 
by Richard Massabny                                                                                                                                
Jim Brochu IS Zero Mostel! Well , obviously , Brochu isn’t Zero Mostel , but he’s the closest thing to him. Who doesn’t know Zero Mostel—that bug-eyed , rotund actor/comedian who was bigger than life on the  stage and screen in such hits as , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum , Fiddler on the Roof and The Producers. Jim Brochu  has been touring the country for years with this marvelous one man show about the loveable, bombastic Zero. Brochu wrote the story of the once blacklisted actor who faced up to the House Un-American Activities Committee in the early 50’s during the Committee’s maniacal quest for Communists and former Commies in the theater world.  Thus Mostel and others were kept from working for over a dozen years.  Brochu does a good job of reminding us of those horrible days  during the Senator McCarthy era---but this show is overwhelmingly funny. Brochu enthralled the Theater J audience with his metamorphous  portrayal of wild actor Zero. Hollywood actor and friend of Brochu , Piper Laurie , directs this masterpiece production. Don’t Miss Zero Hour.

ARTISTICALLY SPEAKING (TV)
by Marilu Donahue                                                                                                        
Zero Hour is deeply moving, laugh-out-loud funny and Brochu’s performance shimmers like gold. Don’t miss Zero Hour.

THE JEWISH PRESS – NATIONAL WEEKLY

by Menachem Wecker

In Zero Hour, Brochu's Mostel mixes humor with pain. He answers his phone "Palestinian Anti-Defamation League. This is Yassir speaking." He tells a reporter he casts as a model, "Now turn more to your left. Oh, but you're from the New York Times. How much further left can you turn?" He jokes that a press agent gave him the name Zero due to his school grade point average. He calls FDR one of history's greatest Jewish minds. There is something very special about Brochu's Mostel. Not only is the script brilliantly written and hilarious - and it is both - but it is also personal. As a high school sophomore, Brochu met Mostel on the set of A Funny Thing. "I had no idea who Zero Mostel was when I first saw the show," Brochu writes in an author's note in the script, "but was knocked out by the comedic force of nature that ruled over the stage of the Alvin Theatre." A comedic force of nature that knocks people out is a description that could apply to Brochu's acting as well. The show is set in Mostel's studio, where he paints, as a reporter, who is off-stage interviews him. Mostel participates in the interview reluctantly at first, but then pours out his life story, down to the most intimate details.