Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...And thus "Collected Stories," which charts (a tad neatly, perhaps) the relationship of these two women over several years, is a rather delicious and admirably honest couple of hours, moving easily between the many lighter moments when Margulies is satirizing the insecurities of the creative classes, both young and old, and the darker themes, when Roman's Ruth literally has to stare down her own mortality, like a West Village King Lear. No wonder this role has attracted some fine actors, including Uta Hagen. It is a juicy part, indeed, and Roman is every inch the imposing, intimidating teacher who has cultivated precisely that image - only, toward the end, to start to realize she has handed a shovel to a young woman who just might dig her grave."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...Ruth Steiner is a literary lion and Lisa Morrison her grad-student cub; Donald Margulies's canny 1996 script follows their relationship over the course of six years, during which Lisa gets big enough to be dangerous. Gwendolyn Whiteside is unnecessarily skittish as Lisa-more like a naive freshman than somebody going for an advanced degree. But the role of Ruth is built for a tour de force, and Carmen Roman delivers a fine, strategically ambiguous one. As directed, appropriately, by the mother-daughter team of Mary Ann and Jessica Thebus, this American Blues Theater production culminates in a knock-down, drag-out that leaves welts"
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...Both Roman and Whiteside are the epitome of what critics refer to when we say "multi-layered." Right at the top when Roman (as Ruth) glanced over her glasses at the fledgling Lisa, we see pity, impatience, haughtiness, wryness, and more. Whiteside is a little more surreptitious in her approach; we never quite know what her motivations are as she really plays up the innocence of Lisa. Then, suddenly, she will have in one glance the same pity, impatience, haughtiness, and wryness we saw in Roman."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...The mother and daughter team of Mary Ann Thebus and daughter Jessica Thebus put their subtle touches on this marvelous drama. Carmen Roman plays Ruth with caustic wit and subdued nuances while Gwendolyn Whiteside presents Lisa with bouncy energy and determination. You'd be hard pressed to find a finer acted play that Collected Stories! This is a smart, intelligent work with about two unique characters each with strong wills and plausible motivations. The last scene will give you much to thing about. We relate to both characters as we see how the layers of a teacher-student relationship can easily become blurred when the agenda is conflicted. Since many of us have been in some sort of mentor-protege relationship in our lives, Collected Stories is easy to relate to. See this show as it puts a new twist on that dynamic."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Try to imagine a relationship between the mentor and her protege; one that should be a beautiful experience for both- the writer , in this particular case who is lending her expertise to the hungry for knowledge student who dreams of publishing her first novel. In Donald Marguilies chilling "Collected Stories" now on the stage of the upstairs theater at Victory Gardens Biograph, the two characters are in fact writers, but in carefully looking at the entire story, it could be almost any career path that could destroy a relationship. Rather than take that path, I prefer to tell you about this specific career path and these two ladies in this special "must see" story."
