Tuesday, January 27, 2009

High Praise for Desire Under the Elms

The reviews are rolling in after last night’s opening night performance of Robert Falls’ Desire Under the Elms.

The Chicago Tribune hails Jeff-recommended Desire Under the Elms “an enormous, bold…colossal, eye-popping, unabashedly sexual and overtly expressionistic” production and praises Carla Gugino’s “careermaking performance” as Abbie.

The Chicago Sun-Times raves, “Falls’ vision…is fierce and relentless...You will not soon forget this thunderous production.”

And Newcity states, “this exceptional revival…is currently the best thing on a Chicago stage and deserves a place on every critic’s ‘Best Of’ list twelve months from now.”

We are very excited about the critics’ reviews, but we want to know what you think!

Share your thoughts about Desire Under the Elms by clicking the comments link below.

3 comments:

  1. I just got home from the show. I'm so glad I didn't miss Ms. Gugino's final performance. Deserves nothing less but praises and praises.

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  2. We were AWESTRUCK. We attended--or better stated "experienced"--last night's performance. Brian Dennehy was powerful, incredible, amazing. And the other cast members? Perfect. We were not watching actors--we saw only Ephraim, Abbie, Eben, Peter and Simeon. And the set, and the music? WOW. WOW. The memory of Desire will haunt us for a very long time. Thank you, everyone, for a tremendous success. And PLEASE bring this work to the Goodman after your run in New York!!

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  3. Four of us attended the performance on Friday, February 20. We could "hear" the dialogue, but at least 60% of it, or more, was unintelligible.
    We sat in the mezzanine, but there is no excuse for this. Audiences must be able to hear and understand the dialogue from any seat in the house. We heard others complaining about the same thing as we left the theatre. My sister attended less than a week later. She was also seated in the mezzanine, and she had the same experience. I am reluctant to purchase such expensive tickets again if the result is going to be an elaborate, distracting set, and dialogue that is incomprehensible.

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