Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Smith's waspish, on-the-edge exasperation and Thulin's vulnerability - all the more appealing because we sense that Sheila despises those who use their emotional wounds to curry favor with the world - blend seamlessly, whether they're together or alone onstage. What we're left with is a funny and haunting portrait of parents handed more than most of us can imagine, and who both fear and desire the end of their long journey with their fragile offspring."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...It is the worst nightmare of every expectant parent — that their child will be born severely disabled, requiring round-the-clock care for life, with no hope for improvement or natural development, and no ability to speak, think or respond normally. In the bluntest terms — and no one is more blunt than the doctor consulted by the devastated mother in “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg” — now in a superb revival by Stage Left Theatre, under the spot-on direction of Greg Werstler — her child is “a vegetable,” and she’d better get used to it."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"... Instead he indulges in copious metatheatrical shenanigans that let his characters reveal their inner feelings, illustrate the couple's backstory, and address the ways society misunderstands people with disabilities. Much of this is interesting, even entertaining, but it leaves the core of the story underdeveloped. Despite strong performances, director Greg Werstler's overly deliberate pacing makes the evening feel more like a play than life."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Easing us into sympathy for this suffering family is Stage Left's tightly integrated ensemble, led by Vance Smith and Kendra Thulin as the beleaguered parents, and featuring uncaricatured performances by Brian Plocharczyk and Annie Prichard as shallow neighbors Freddie and Pam, Marssie Mencotti as doting grandma Grace and the praiseworthy Piper Bailey, who never betrays the illusion of Joe's restricted capabilities by so much as an unscripted sniff or wriggle."
Centerstage - Highly Recommended
"..."A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" is a beautifully written and acted show with complex, layered characterizations and a compassionate attempt to address questions for which there are no easy answers."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Yet Joe Egg is just as much a moving portrait of marriage as a marathon performance, in which the circumstance of Josephine's condition might as well stand in for any number of variables. Bri and Sheila regularly step out of the action to address us directly, either separately or together; it's in these sequences that we learn about the encounter with Dr. "Wegetable," as reenacted by Brian, along with much of the rest of their back story: their meeting, their marriage, learning about Joe's diagnosis and searching for somewhere to assign blame for it."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...What makes this play worth seeing is the fabulous performance from Vance Smith. Add fine turns by Kendra Thulin and the disciplined work from young Piper Bailey, as the disabled child and Joe Egg becomes a show worth your time and money."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...Stage Left Theatre's production of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg is a good play to be followed by long discussions into the night. However, it will not provide the kind of entertainment you get from something like a musical or improv show. This production will leave you with a heaviness in your chest and most likely tears in your eyes."