Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...The show, frankly, is dull to watch, the best efforts of its very accomplished actors withstanding, and since you're looking at the audience, you are fully aware of the production's halting and repetitive rhythms and the price they exact upon an attention span. Especially given such comfy seats."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Deborah Zoe Laufer’s “End Days,” is a post-Sept. 11, 2001 play that trades in many of the subjects people prefer to dance around, from religion, bullying and depression, to doomsday prognostications and death. The wonder of it all is that it is as laugh-out-loud funny as it is smart and full of heart. And while it is painfully aware of our ever-looming mortality on this Earth, the play also is fully preoccupied with food and first love, as well as with Jesus, Elvis and that pop star astrophysicist with ALS by the name of Stephen Hawking."
Gapers Block - Recommended
"...Laufer's script was a finalist for the 2008 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award and it bears the quality of a work that went through that rigorous screening. The dialogue is smart, funny and often moving. The company's publicity describes the play as a "comic romp," but the play is really a drama with some effective laugh lines."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...But Henry Godinez’s staging, spread across a vast expanse of stage in Windy City’s current traverse configuration, diffuses the action, leaving Laufer’s cartoonish characterizations all too exposed. Though Steven Strafford amuses in his dual turns as Jesus and Hawking, the whimsical device underlines Laufer’s broad-strokes approach to faith. As a new entrant to Chicago’s theater scene, Windy City Playhouse shows great promise, but End Days is less than rapturous."
Theatre By Numbers - Recommended
"...At the end of the day, it was a light, fun piece of theatre. While is wasn’t particularly deep, it was a safe bet well performed for a fledgling company."
Stage and Cinema - Somewhat Recommended
"...Not without some whimsical wisdom and diverting details, End Days is doggedly intent on delivering simple solutions for unfelt crises. The result, despite sturdy work from all involved, is a ton of unearned emotion-despite (it's hard to tell from this production) unplumbed depths in these supposedly pain-stricken characters. Laufer's cerebral sitcom means well but her achingly intentional healing barely offers a single surprise."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...Without revealing too much, let me say that playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer’s script is a sit-com that contains a surprising ending that is both plausible and smart. This show intelligently, with loads of wit, pokes at religious fanaticism as a means to heal our personal wounds. Laufer suggests a more human source of renewal and faith to fill our needs. Without being ‘preachy’ or condescending, End Days unfolds as a funny look at the role of faith in human relations. This show is cute and healing. Indeed it sends Elvis to the rescue."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended
"...Happiness is elusive. No one knows this better than Christian fundamentalists awaiting the rapture. End Days, Deborah Zoe Laufer’s comedy in which dire Biblical prophecies compete with Stephen Hawking’s quips, largely pleased its audience, however, as Windy City Playhouse’s inaugural production."
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...The initial production, “End days” is a comedy/drama is the story of the Steins, a very typical family that has had their lives affected by the trauma of the events of 9/11. Sylvia (an amazing portrayal by Tina Gluschenko) thinks that the world is about to come to an end and that 9/11 was just the wake-up call. Her husband, Arthur ( the always reliable Keith Kupferer) was there that day, losing all his employees as he escaped the tragedy. His life since then has been mostly nonexistent. Their daughter, teen-ager Rachel (deftly handled by the adorable Sari Sanchez, although she wears white-face, making it difficult to see) has become a renegade."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Recommended
"...The Playhouse is fortunate in casting Tina Gluschenko as the driven Sylvia. We never doubt the woman’s good intentions in readying her family for the Rapture, but her ferocity when she thinks her husband and daughter take the Rapture as a joke and mock her are scary. Fanaticism, however laudable the cause, is off putting and there were moments in the second act when Sylvia makes the viewer very nervous in her monomania."
The Fourth Walsh - Highly Recommended
"...And as much as I enjoyed it for its tender redemption quality, END DAYS is also pretty damn funny. The talented ensemble hit their own lampoons hard. When requested to stay home from school for the end of the world, Cefalu and Sanchez both express concern about missing a quiz. There is the irony about not needing school because the world is ending. And that gets humorously amplified because Cefalu is dressed like Elvis and Sanchez is dressed in her goth. They don't look like serious students. Kupferer delivers comedy like its improv. At one point Sanchez's makeup gets on his sleeve, Kupferer zings with 'it's good to know this white stuff comes off.' His timing seems completely organic. Still, the comical standout is Stafford. Not only does he play Jesus, he plays Stephen Hawking. And his delivery is an impeccable tribute to each. Hysterical!"
