Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...“Cry It Out” is often funny, but it’s a very emotional show. It’s about a time in life when we’re all confronted with a sudden rush of love, when our priorities get recentered in the blink of an eye, an eye that does not belong to ourselves. It’s about an avalanche of affection, responsibility, fear and self-doubt."
Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"...In 90 minutes, director Jessica Fisch creates a vivid, specific portrayal of the joys and hair-tearing, mind-numbing agonies - mental, physical and financial - many new mothers face. If you loved the movie "Waitress" (it ends as a new mom veritably glows with the miraculous realization that she has found her life's one, true purpose.), you'll probably be alarmed - and grossed out - by "Cry It Out." It's a story of love, but it's also about anger, stress, unfairness, loss and the ravages of breastfeeding."
Daily Herald - Recommended
"...Metzler addresses with candor, humor, empathy and even fury the challenges new mothers face: from breast-feeding and sleep training to dealing with spouses and in-laws. Her play also takes on what may be the most pressing challenge -- whether to return to work or stay home with the baby, a choice that often depends on one's position on the economic ladder."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Jessica Fisch's staging is as deft as the script, thanks in large part to Laura Lapidus's complex Lina and Darci Nalepa's anguished but never maudlin Jessie. Kristina Valada-Viars runs stunningly from mean-girl churlishness to pure thunder as Adrienne, while Gabriel Ruiz rings variations on discomfort as Mitchell. Andrew Boyce's set and Paul Toben's lighting find nuance in a suburban backyard."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...Director Jessica Fisch allows us to see up close the daily drama and dilemma mothers endure while making decisions about returning to work versus staying at home, the fears of feeling separated from family and friends, and how affluence can impact parenthood. Fisch masterfully gives us a glimpse of how trying to balance the work/life experience of motherhood can bring about a grappling and challenging adjustment to staying connected to your baby without losing yourself."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Parenthood! Everyone has their idea ( and ideals) of what the perfect parent should be. Most men, although they feel they were an important part of their children’s lives, forget the first days and weeks of parenting, where they went back to work, leaving their wife home to handle every little detail of rearing their child. In Molly Smith Metzler’s “Cry It Out”, now on the stage of The Northlight Theatre in Skokie, we get a glimpse into the lives of three families, each having just had a baby. The play in four scenes is filled with comic touches dealing with motherhood ( and just a little bit of fatherhood tossed in for good measure) and is an uninterrupted 100 minutes without an intermission."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...In today’s world, overshadowed by lying government representatives and disappointing political power plays and payoffs, it’s refreshing to focus on a play featuring more domestic issues. Motherhood hasn’t always been given a fair shake, especially when we hear about cuts in maternity benefits and early childhood education. We also tend to think that, while a man can get up, go to work and come home to his wife and baby, the woman’s role should be a no-brainer. She’s carried the child for nine months, has given birth and then, especially nowadays, heads right back to work. Any quality time spent between mother and child is deemed as the lazy, comfortable way out for a woman. Most husbands feel that their wives ought to return to the workforce as quickly as possible. Molly Smith Metzler’s thought-provoking play, with it’s many comic moments, sheds new light on this whole situation and the result is a bouncing, bundle of joy."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Highly Recommended
"...Metzler’s play has tapped into a stream in contemporary American domestic life that deserves the probing treatment it is receiving at the Northlight. At the end of the performance, after the lights went out, the opening night audience seemed slowly to react. But as the players stepped forward for their curtain call, the applause rose in volume and the viewers were standing, acknowledging a meaningful and accessible drama that touched everyone at some level. Word of mouth should make this a very tough ticket in Skokie."
Chicago Theater and Arts - Recommended
"...Directed by Jessicas Fisch, all the actors in this small cast are excellent as they present different aspects of how what they want is not what they can have.'
Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended
"...The characters and dialogue could have been pulled from any new mothers group. And the bottom line is that new parents discover for themselves that their children don’t come with manuals; everything is ultimately up to the parents to teach and decide. There is no “right” and “wrong” way; there is only “our” way. And it’s completely impossible to know for sure that you are doing the best thing for your baby. But it’s sure nice to have a friend to have your back."
NewCity Chicago - Recommended
"...There’s a long and eloquent pause at the beginning of the third act of this intermissionless show when Jessie ponders the true soul-cost of the American Dream she’s been sold, that of high-consumption domestic bliss in a private setting. For me, that pause—and the resigned, beyond-tears sadness of the denouement that follows—redeems this play, shifting it from a mundane slice of life to a sharp and poignant questioning and critique."