Agamemnon at Dream Theatre

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...Agamemnon" focuses on the doomed king's shipboard run-ins with his Trojan concubine, Cassandra, as they sail away from her home and towards his. That's an episode Aeschylus ignores entirely. But Menekseoglu--who also plays the title role--makes it a small, stunning portrait of power dynamics in a relationship that by turns echoes those between Edward Albee's George and Martha, Orson Welles's Charles and Susan Kane, and Sophocles's Antigone and Creon. Oh, and Jean Cocteau's Belle and Bete, too."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended

"...I am now a fan of Dream Theatre because they do not shy away from being theatrical. I feel there has been a developing trend to create plays that want to be movies, but Dream Theatre embraces the theatrical experience. The set design by Gia Truong, Louise Sison, Mishelle Oun, Joanna Kurnyta was artistic, yet serviceable. Anna Weller's lighting design was effectively grandiose, while establishing mood and locale. Menekseoglu's sound design set the tone from the moment I walked into the theatre and maintained it until I left."

Chicago Theater Beat - Recommended

"...On the whole, Agamemnon is an odd and oddly fresh performance that hits intriguing notes. Menekseoglu and Arnett both deliver performances admirable in their intensity. It’s intimate and foreign; funny one moment and then frightening the next. It uses melodrama as a technique and not by accident. But the blend of heightened language with profanity and everyday speech still gets in the way. The attempts at many of the poetic moments feel overdone, prosaic, and closer to the 2,500 year old source-text than most moments in the rest of the show. A trait that may make the show a fuller experience for dramaphiles already familiar with the myth that Menekseoglu is molding."