Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Gordon's staging finds a strong balance between painful revelation and horseplay in the locker room, and Gangel and Ervin's performances vibrate with honesty and restlessness. Joanna Iwanicka's set and Charles Cooper's lighting provide additional veracity. (Glimmering lights on the tile wall suggest the reflection from the pool just outside the door.) "Dry Land" takes us on an unexpected journey into the hearts of darkness and light beating inside ordinary teenagers, and reflects them in all their messy complexity."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Playwright Ruby Rae Spiegel was just 21, and still an undergraduate at Yale, when her extraordinary play, "Dry Land," debuted in New York in Sept. 2014. Watching it now, in its Midwest debut by Rivendell Theatre - where two young actresses, Bryce Gangel and Jessica Ervin, under the unflinching direction of Hallie Gordon, are giving such raw, fearless, excruciatingly soul-bearing performances that you forget they are acting - you can only be shaken and awestruck on every count."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...t's all a bit dutiful, and Spiegler's haphazard structure diminishes the play's overall impact. But her articulation of the girls' friendship is masterful, as is director Hallie Gordon's graceful yet gutsy staging for Rivendell. In the lead roles, Bryce Gangel and Jessica Ervin deliver meticulous, affecting performances that eclipse the limited material."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Playwright Ruby Rae Spiegel packs a huge amount into Dry Land, yet it never seems to be too much, and all of it has the ring of truth to my ears. Her pithy dialogue seems matter-of-fact and the vulgar teenaged moment—especially when Amy intentionally shocks with her sexual awareness—resonances and has nuances. It's brought to life by Hallie Gordon's skilled, incisive direction and the no-false-notes performances of Gangel and Ervin, who carefully articulate the emotional arcs of their characters, with the Ester/Victor scene as the pivot point. Amy isn't likeable—her self-loathing is revealed when she's drunk—and Gangel bravely follows the playwright's and Gordon's lead, allowing Ervin to grow before our eyes. The very capable Farabee offers pitch-perfect collegiate awkwardness in his one scene. Great set, too! You can smell the chlorine in Joanna Iwanicka's dead-on all-tile locker room, and hear towels snap."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...Dry Land is a well staged and finely acted drama that speaks to its core audience directly. It will shock you with its realism. Teenage girls should see this powerful show. Playwright Ruby Rae Spiegel sure has a pulse for teenage girls angst."
Chicago Theater Beat - Highly Recommended
"...It’s again worth noting that Dry Land finds many moments of humor in its observations of teenagerdom. You don’t have to have had a traumatic high school experience to recognize the beats of life that hound these characters. The tedium of mediocrity. The desire to escape. Secrets of the flesh. Shame. We laugh and wince in self defense. Every blow lands."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...“Dry Land” is one of those plays that come around once a year if we’re lucky. It is a production of incredible grace and fury that plunges to breath-stealing dramatic depths. Yet it would be wrong to call it fearless. This play’s bravery is in direct reaction to a very real, very tangible and very timeless terror. The world over has given women so much to be afraid of that a play such as this is itself a revolutionary act. And the existence of Rivendell Theatre Ensemble is nothing short of a miracle."
