Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Much of the play's complexity, and Chekhovian angst, comes from Robert being a lousy father, a cold and even cruel personality. Which did not, of course, make him wrong in his predictions and research. But even though rooted in (just pre-Brexit) British politics, "Earthquakes in London" does identify a not-uncommon familial situation; you can despise, and be hurt by, those with whom you agree politically, and that does not help us make collective change. The other thing about this play — which is staged with real fearlessness by director Jonathan Berry and his ensemble cast — is that it clearly is an attempt to grasp the biggest thing that, more than any other factor, prevents action on this issue."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Swirling through the mass of bodies (it’s a 15-person cast in a tiny space) are a British family of four: Robert (Jim Poole), renowned climatologist and estranged father, and his three daughters, workaholic Sarah (Cindy Marker), 19-year-old hot mess Jasmine (Sarah Price), and pregnant, paranoid Freya (Lucy Carapetyan). As they try out their varied and equally pathetic tactics against disaster—cosmic despair, science, getting high, political activism—they beautifully convey our frailty in the face of forces too big to comprehend."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...Though it took some time for British playwright Mike Bartlett’s 2010 play Earthquakes in London to make its Chicago premiere, the timing couldn’t be much better. The piece is a sprawling, contemporary epic, suffused with loneliness and anxiety. It stands on the edge of humankind’s personal apocalypse and wrestles with the only question worth asking anymore: How do we go on?"
Chicago On the Aisle - Recommended
"..."Earthquakes in London" reminds me a bit of the film "Deep Impact." Even as we're looking at impending disaster for humanity, on the shifting ground people are still people, still making messes of their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Here, the ultimate bad parent, a genius-level scientist who sees climate change plunging the world toward an early end, offers his daughters - he has three - this fatherly counsel: Don't ever have children; they would be doomed."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...Robert says that our planet of six billion inhabitants, capable of housing only a sixth of that population, will soon be balanced out by nature in the coming years. It’s a pronouncement that leaves audiences shaken and filled with angst, especially as we witness the onstage devastation, storms, titular earthquakes and the ultimate destruction of a home that mankind’s ignorance has allowed. This is an epic work, a fatalistic drama, the scale of which might be compared somewhat to the Goodman’s “2666” or the Hypocrites’ “All Our Tragic.” The production, in terms of detail, characters, thematic material and sheer length, isn’t for the fainthearted or those who come to the theatre for light entertainment. But Mike Bartlett’s surreal drama conveys an important message for those contemporary audiences willing to experience it."
The Fourth Walsh - Somewhat Recommended
"...I wanted to sink my heels into EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON. The premise of a dysfunctional family paralleled within the urgency of climate change urgency is clever. Although the layers of relational woe are there for the sorting, the pile is too deep and the terrain too shaky for contemplation. The ensemble has trouble sustaining the drama with all the moving parts. At times, characters deliver preachy soliloquies that add length and confusion but no real substance. The tension withers in the swirling chaos. It's not a complete disaster but this EARTHQUAKE measures about a four on the Richter Scale."
Third Coast Review - Recommended
"...Jonathan Berry's direction is masterful, keeping this tragicomedy on track. (The playwright notes in his script prologue, "Scenes crash into each other, impolitely. They overflow, overlap. The production should always seem at risk of descending into chaos but never actually do so." Berry's cast is excellent, particularly Carapetyan, Price and Marker as the three sisters."
Picture This Post - Somewhat Recommended
"...These three sisters are richly drawn, as are many of the characters surrounding them. But as EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON elliptically progresses, it can be hard to stay invested. The actors jump with conviction from surreal symbolic disco dances and futuristic visions to literal present-day meetings at Westminster and tense marital squabbles. In the end, however, the script's bounty of messages about our disruption to the cosmos begins to sag under its own weight."
NewCity Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"..."Earthquakes" is clearly reaching for profundity though it's disparate parts never seem to synthesize into a meaningful whole. The production is not lacking in aspiration and there's no contesting the play's relevance. Yet the lack of clear purpose coupled with an indulgence of middle class anxieties surrounding a catastrophe that, for significant parts of the rest of the world, is already in process, grounds "Earthquakes.""
