“The real meat of the play – as with most imagined meetings – is the way it takes a new look at the two men’s artistic outputs, especially when viewed through the context of the other. Kerouac’s work becomes more French Canadian than Americana: through Tremblay’s eyes, he becomes a writer concerned with family and relationships, small stories about the people he loves instead of the ‘great American novel’ that On the Road is credited as. Tremblay, too, is put through the wringer: his play … Les Belles-Soeurs is reinterpreted through Kerouac’s own bebop-influenced prose style … As a ‘what if?’ scenario that explores not only two lions of 20th-century literature but also the cross-border culture of North America’s French fact, Michel & Ti-Jean successfully explores the nature of creation in a time of upheaval, both personal as well as political.”
– VUE Weekly

“At its core, this play is about the granting of permission and forgiveness. Tremblay seeks permission to succeed where Jack, his hero, has failed. … And what he wants most of all is permission to write. What Kerouac wants from Tremblay is more complicated, but it seems to boil down to forgiveness. … Michel and Ti-Jean is not about a man who gave up on himself but, rather, one who is fighting like hell to believe in himself again.”
– Montreal Review of Books

“a probing character study”
– Edmonton Sun

“If it all seems a little retro in the digital 21st century – bus trips, literary legends, wide collared shirts, moustaches, heavy drinking – there’s one theme coursing through Michel & Ti-Jean that still resonates. That’s the emotional roller-coaster that ensues when a talented, ambitious young person goes for a ride on the fame cycle, and how hard it is when the ride stops.”
– Calgary Herald

“As a bio-play, this one succeeds marvellously in the tricky art of having famous people tell us about their life and work without awkward exposition. These two go further, spilling out their angst, drawing conclusions, messing up the stage in the sometimes painful, more often joyful process. …Michel & Ti-Jean is one of those landmark cultural events after which Montreal, Quebec will never be the same, a play that redefines how we live together and how that existence, so changed in recent decades, can make great art.”
– Rover Arts

“Michael & Ti-Jean really works, somehow drawing us into the imagined collision of these two formidable personalities and egos.”
– Globe and Mail

“An unexpected surprise, a daring, novel, audacious idea that actually works on stage.”
– The Métropolitain