Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...But it would not be fair to this terrific play — which is directed like it’s an open-heart emergency by Nataki Garrett — to see it merely as conversational or reactive. There is a deep longing for connection in the writing — a touching romanticism, actually, and the whole play often feels like a cry for the urban world to just be kinder and better and easier."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...It's difficult to sum up the impact of Aziza Barnes' raw, blistering, hilarious and enraging "BLKS." It is by far an bracingly deep dive into intricacies, absurdities and boisterous contradictions of female friendship. And not, praise be, female friendship of the obnoxious "Girls" variety. With twentysomething New Yorkers Octavia, June, Ry and Imani, Barnes creates a quartet whose personalities are a glorious tangle of complexities."
Daily Herald - Somewhat Recommended
"...Overall, the production could use a lighter touch. Unrelenting, bordering on shrill, the bombast threatens to overwhelm the play's quieter, more authentic moments. The best of which are heart-to-heart conversations between Smallwood's eager Justin and Ayers' wary June, and another between Ayers and Davis' Ry, who eloquently explains why she loves the woman she loves."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Don't be fooled by the velocity at which director Nataki Garrett enumerates the trials of being young and smart in an ambiguous urban environment with your whole life ahead of you and what are you going to do about it? As we acclimate to the carnival ambience of this pivotal day, we begin to detect beneath the Boschean landscape a stereotype-shattering portrait of modern youth grown so defensive that when confronted by strangers not bent on bullying or exploitation, its response is to flee in confusion."
Theatre By Numbers - Recommended
"...Even though it is a comedy, “BLKS” provides no simple answers. The women rage and dance and build one another up, but there is a thread of loneliness, grief, and hurt running through each of their lives that cannot be solved, no matter what they do. Watching how they endure their loss is definitely entertaining, but I do wonder what will become of each of them after the lights go down, and the audience leaves them behind."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...The nine characters and six performers convince, the actors forging as much freshness as a schematic, sometime sitcom, script permits. You may leave wanting more story (just as some may wish for more vowels in the title) but, no doubt, June, Octavia, Ry, Imani and their night visitors will fully fill viewers — BLKS and WHTS both."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...BLKS seems to be a combination of "In Living Color, Set It Off, and Girlfriends all rolled into one play; so you know this is a "Must See" play!""
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...One might say that this is a “coming of age” story of three distinctly different female personalities and how, in their own special way, they fuse their ideals and thoughts together to form a friendship that can never be broken, no matter what takes place. “BLKS” explores the lives of big city women who are faced with new thoughts and ideas every day, and we get to watch them come to terms with their destinies. While the content of the story is dramatic and very real, there are many great moments of comedy and you will find yourselves laughing ( even when you don’t expect to)."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...In Nataki Garrett’s capable hands, Aziza Barnes’ autobiographical comedy is given a first-rate world premiere. Audiences will not only be in for some raucous, bawdy humor in these characters, but may empathize with these gutsy ladies in their situations. What this play all comes down to is an examination of sincere, 21st century friendship among three African-American musketeers. Through thick and thin, this trio of 20-something ladies will always be there for each other in any situation. In our violent, uncertain world, this may be the one element many of us are missing and would love to find for ourselves. Ms. Barnes’ gritty, complex cityscape offers three tough cookies who know that, come what may, life’s good when you’ve got a friend."
Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended
"...The vibrant action of BLKS is supported by equally vibrant design. Sibyl Wickersheimer's scenic design allows for characters to travel from an apartment to a club and back again with very little changeover, and still manages to provide more than just functionality. With a conflagration of couches, color, and brick, Wickersheimer creates a world as raw and dynamic as the characters who inhabit it."
The Hawk Chicago - Recommended
"...The amusing antics of 20-somethings in big cities has become entertainment fodder since the induction of hit shows like Broad City and Girls to cable television, and though poet Aziza Barnes’ first foray into playwriting could easily be compared to either, her work stands on its own. To begin with, her millennial female friends navigating New York are not exclusively (or almost exclusively) white--in fact, it’s the drunken white girl who is the odd-woman-out in this script chock full of hilarious one-liners. This, in itself, is noteworthy. In an industry rampant with white experiences, Barnes’ offers a heartwarming and funny response to the narratives we see everyday."
Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended
"...“There’s something intrinsic about a couch in black culture,” Aziza Barnes, the author of BLKS, the hilarious and often powerful play about being young, female, and black, says in an interview published in the play’s program. “It’s like a porch for city dwellers…It’s really evocative of a pioneer life and what matters and what mattered was a place that you or anyone could feel comfortable.”"
Picture This Post - Highly Recommended
"...BLKS examines real issues facing women, blacks and black women, through the experiences and encounters of three smart, sassy, and often bewildered young ladies trying to find their way through life. Proving that the world has not changed, it’s just as indifferent, cruel and rewarding as ever."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...And so, for us white folk (especially the breed who make patronizing the theater a personal mission) this a privileged, though nevertheless complicated, invitation into a private world that should be treated with respect. For people of color, queer, gender non-conforming and young people, it is, one hopes, a space where they can see themselves rather than being othered. “‘Live’ and ‘belong’ are two different things,” observes Imani (Celeste M. Cooper) early on. In our community—to say nothing of our city, country and world—the discrepancy between these two is palpable and extreme. If equity is truly a priority, there has to be an understanding of the difference between being listened to and believed rather than simply seen and heard."