“This is where it comes from. . . . takes place in a black-board lined open box scrawled with buzz phrases. . . . The theme in this hour-long series of text fragments is sexuality; not just sexual identity but sex-role identification which manifests itself in splattery waves of anxiety, confusion and hostility. A ‘crazy man’ . . . . rants. . . Impossibly provocative couples are glimpsed. . . . neighbors are spied in various alarming, lustful practices. . . . the show’s bottled-and-shaken intensity doesn’t aim toward fill good catharsis — it’s more of a discomforting spur toward further discussion.”
Dennis Harvey, SF Bay Guardian
“Fascinating, his panorama of characters range from a crazy man screaming obscenities to himself relating stories of relationships. With bare-bones honesty and rawness, he lets us see his inner torment, the feelings of foolishness, fear or confusion as he tries to figure out his own sexual identity. . .”
Lucia Dewey, Drama-Logue
“This is where it comes from, a piece about men’s relationships with other men, women and themselves. . . . [is] a tightly-scripted set of short stories. . . . his spare physical actions provided just the right highlights. . . .breaking out of loneliness through sex. . . . provided a sense of there being no escape. . . . lifted its viewers up to get a better view of themselves and their relationships with people around them.”
Charles Boone, P-Form
“Solo performer Sten Rudstrøm taps into deeply buried reservoirs of anger in his excavation of the roots of sexuality, This is where it comes from. Flailing against the facile categorization offered by terms like “heterosexual” and “homosexual,” Rudstrøm also cringes at fears of hermaphrodism. . . . Perhaps most surprising is the savage humor the performer employs to bind together the scary, scandalous and romantic.”
San Francisco Weekly
“This is where it comes from is provocative, intriguing.”
Anne Waldman, poet
“The highlight was the incredible solo improvisations of Sten Rudstrøm. . . . The Yesterday Variations was a hilarious and frightening glimpse at how the words and music of icons Lennon and McCartney might be (and surely are) rumbling around in the subconscious of the psychotic.”
Tom Sherman, SF Bay Guardian
“Rudstrøm’s rendition of the McCartney ‘classic’ fashionably deviated over and above what anyone could have dreamed up. . . . [his] loungy ruffled shirt embellished his disturbed yet humorous dismantling of sentimentality.”
Geli B., SF Bay Guardian