Give It All Back presented by Sideshow Theatre Company at Victory Gardens Theater - Biograph

Chicago Tribune - Recommended

"...The direction perfectly embraces West's quirky gestalt, but it misses more than a few chances to really go for the jugular. And although Goetten achieves a lot here, and is playing a guy who barely knows himself, it cannot be quite this inscrutable a piece of acting. There has to be more vulnerability. You see and feel it with Chinn and with Kite, who is exceptionally good. The whole show just needs higher human stakes and a faster pace."

Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended

"...At the center of Give It All Back is a famous musician you'd swear was Bob Dylan. In 1966 Dylan was on a world tour, having recently enraged his folkie fan base by going electric. West's "Artist" is also touring, also under fire. He spends his days in a Paris hotel room, much as the Erdely character holed up at her mom's house. But the Artist's real disguise is the asshole persona he's chosen to present to the world. Marti Lyons's staging for Sideshow Theatre goes slack in its second act, when West hasn't much to do but contrive a satisfying ending, but until then it's crisp, funny, and shrewd. Mary Williamson is a hoot as a cross between Allen Ginsberg and R. Crumb's Mr. Natural."

Windy City Times - Recommended

"...The cast assembled by Marti Lyons adheres strictly to West's double image, never betraying their source material by a covert wink or exaggerated mannerism, while Matthew Chapman's sound design carefully evades any telltale vocal stylings ( coming no closer than the Velvet Underground's "Waiting for the Man" ). Their discipline, while admirable, makes for a dramatic tone perhaps too scholarly for its topic, but welcome levity is manifest in Mary Williamson's delightfully outrageous-and surprisingly accurate-drag turn as the gay Ginsberg-surrogate serenely dispensing hallucinogens and zen wisdom."

The Fourth Walsh - Somewhat Recommended

"...Give It All Back is an attractive production with some enjoyable moments and performances, but ultimately feels non-essential due to the lack of insight Calamity West's script brings to the bard's legend and a lead performance that is lacking the Dylan magic."

NewCity Chicago - Somewhat Recommended

"...However, the production as a whole doesn't hang together. In addition to a few flubbed lines and some technical difficulties the evening I attended, the play's transitions, which sometimes form a part of the narrative and sometimes seem purely perfunctory, add to the sense that this production is currently under-rehearsed. Additionally, director Marti Lyons doesn't always seem to know what to do with her actors, who are confined by three walls in a hotel room that is more spare than swank."