Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...APTP created this show based on the actual lives of the company members, and the stories they came up with fall into two distinct groups. One probes how the food of our homelands profoundly influences us for our whole lives — actually, it does not have to be our homeland, but just the homeland of someone who still was alive when we were children. The other probes how our experience of food as young people is underpinned by desire and embarrassment."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...A unique celebration of the role food plays in the lives of this city’s immigrant families, this altogether astonishing work has been devised by the Albany Park Theater Project (APTP), a creative universe that simply has no equal. And it is being performed by the 25 members of that youth ensemble (ages 13 through 18), who easily can compete with any Equity cast, and make the Goodman Theatre, which has served as APTP’s summertime host for five seasons, feel like a natural home."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...New set pieces concern eating poor, raising a cow, the romance of sugar, the magic of mole, Islamic butchery, and cooking as a form of oppression. There's charm, insight, and considerable candor here—as well as a nicely executed bit featuring girls as doll-like victims of traditional gender roles. But the production overall lacks the grace and cohesion of its predecessor. (The set design is just plain odd, its most notable feature being a big, orange, hairy ball suspended from the ceiling.) Where the original Feast stood on its own, the 2015 edition needs our goodwill to get by."
Gapers Block - Highly Recommended
"...Feast, the new production by the Albany Park Theater Project and Goodman Theatre, is indeed a feast of color, sounds, cuisines and ethnicities, celebrating Chicago's diverse food culture. It's totally appropriate that it comes to us from Albany Park, one of Chicago's most diverse neighborhoods. Feast tells the stories of how food, its paucity and its plenty, plays a role in family lives and celebrations."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...In the 85 minute one act, we hear monologues, comedy skits, and group ethnic stories complete with sound effects, as in the Filipino story of how a man raised a cow. Two shy teens flirt by exchanging candy treats; LINK (food stamps) cause a little girl to fill out the application while another speaks of the joy of shopping at Aldi with the card. Another speaks of the embarrassment of using the Link card at Aldi’s when she wishes her mother shopped at Jewel."
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...To make this 90 minute story take place, interviews with many locals gave them the basis. The stories have not changed. The staging has changed so that it is now “in the round” of the smaller Owen Theater. There are monitors set up for translations of English to Spanish and Spanish to English, but to be honest, two of these is not really enough for this venue. People were reaching over others in order to see what was being said. The sound was fine for the musical portions, but there were times that the voices did not carry throughout the theater, and I was in the fourth row."
The Fourth Walsh - Highly Recommended
"...APTP takes gritty reality and blends it with whimsy for a palpable pleaser. FEAST is a hearty portion of community life to be sampled. There are only two more weeks… GO!"
