Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Many shows don’t hold up on a second viewing. This one does. Re-experiencing Huff’s tale of two Chicago beat cops caught up in a toxic tangle of crime, loyalty and protection is akin to rewatching one of the better episodes of TV’s “The Wire” or “Deadwood.” You feel more of the intricacy of the storytelling, the richness of the language and the sophisticated melange of broad themes."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Under Russ Tutterow's expert direction, Steinmeyer is scarily good as he captures the sweaty, vulgar, dead-eyed, wild animal aspect of Denny, and DeFaria breaks your heart as the bearlike man with a conscience whose sense of loyalty finally clashes with his hunger for normality. All in all, it's a 95-minute pressure cooker that will blow your lid off."
Daily Herald - Highly Recommended
"...Forget must-see TV. Director Russ Tutterow's riveting production of Huff's taut, gritty cop drama -- a familiar tale about longtime partners whose friendship is tested when one of them starts to spiral out of control -- is must-see theater."
SouthtownStar - Highly Recommended
"...Huff's tough, gritty dialogue may shock a few, but he is using real language of the streets. His sharp-edged vernacular also serves to create electric tension and stinging authenticity in the piece, as well as honest life-size characters that are unforgettable."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Going way beyond simplistic good cop-bad cop dichotomies, Randy Steinmeyer's Denny and Peter DeFaria's Joey reinvigorate every big city temptation that ever stained a badge or ruined a friendship. And director Russ Tutterow turns up the heat like an engineer from hell. A critical and audience hit when it debuted at Chicago Dramatists last September, Huff's catalog of doom mugs an audience as much as entertaining it: as absorbing as things get, it's a positive pleasure to walk away from these guys as quickly as possible afterward."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...DeFaria and Steinmeyer are simply extraordinary. Together, they create a deceptive vortex; you don’t know how completely you’ve been caught up in Denny and Joey’s violent and absurd universe until its full fury is about to be unleashed. Rain begins as a laugh-out-loud comedy, a buddy story of macho knuckleheads. But as it progresses, Rain’s intensity escalates. In the end, wailing sirens and flashing red lights signify a world awash in both emotional and physical carnage."
Chicago Free Press - Highly Recommended
"...With one eye zeroing in on neo-noir crime drama and the other targeting the emotional complexities of male friendships, Chicago Dramatists’ premiere production of Keith Huff’s “A Steady Rain” hits its dramatic targets with point-blank precision. That it also loosely examines the aftermath of one of Illinois’ fairly recent real life crime tragedies is the bloody cherry on an already battle-scarred cake."
Gay Chicago Magazine - Highly Recommended
"...Chicago Dramatists’ Jeff-recommended production of Keith Huff’s wildly popular “A Steady Rain” finds a new home at the Royal George Theatre and new backing from a trio of New York producers. While the new digs can’t hurt, it is doubtful that a “New York treatment” can do anything to improve on this stellar home town tragedy."
EpochTimes - Highly Recommended
"...This is a stunning production- one that will mesmerize you as you watch these two police officers tell their story of just what happened one night and how their lives were affected by the turn of events. If you are a lover of TV shows like "NYPD Blue" or the old "Hill Street Blues" or even "Law and Order" you will find the character study of these two officers akin to some of the characters you have seen on these shows. If you know police officers, you will see them in the two characters, partners as depicted by Mr. Huff."
Centerstage - Highly Recommended
"...Some elements of the plot may strain credulity, but overall this is a moving and gripping production that looks beyond the stereotypes to show us real people, trapped by their fates and themselves."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...The story stumbles slightly near the end, but Huff’s demanding narrative model of dueling first-person recollections is authoritative till then, sold by hardscrabble street vernacular and no-nonsense performances from DeFaria and Steinmeyer. Excellent, evocative sound design by Mike Tutaj and focused, waste-free direction—the best I’ve seen from Tutterow—put this over the top."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...First developed at Chicago Dramatists, under the steady direction of Russ Tutterow, A Steady Rain still possesses its raw power and deep emotions at the Royal George Theatre’s 150 seat theatre. The mesmerizing and emotionally draining drama A Steady Rain, Keith Huff’s great new drama about Chicago cops is a “must see” drama that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat as it chills you deep into your bones."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended
"...Playwright Keith Huff's script is a masterful work that has Joey (Peter DeFaria) and Denny (Randy Steinmeyer) telling their tragic tale directly to the audience as they simultaneously talk to each other. Differing versions of events are woven in and out of the narration/interaction in a seamless flow that appears effortless for DeFaria and Steinmeyer. The dialogue is gritty and honest and the actors are so natural together that the only thing that seems implausible is that the two of them have not been together since childhood."
