Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...Bragg plays the title role in Promethean Theatre Ensemble's production of "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde," a work of docu-theater with a script drawn verbatim from court transcripts as well as first-person accounts that trace the criminal prosecution of Wilde for his sexual relationships with men. The cover of the play program from Promethean goes so far as to underline the physical similarity mentioned above, with the face of Bragg in a ghostly Photoshop next to that of Wilde."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...Wilde comes across as a martyred Christ figure, his incomparable aphorisms transformed into ringing platitudes of inclusivity. As righteous indignation swells in our throats, though, something embarrassing happens: Wilde insists, in quotation after quotation, that moral grandstanding has no place in art. And yet the play itself is as emphatically a piece of moral grandstanding as you'll find. Ill-conceived and drearily acted, it violates all the canons of Wilde's art in the noble cause of educational theater."
Windy City Times - Recommended
"...It's great to have Gross Indecency back on a Chicago stage as a reminder of how these three trials personally ruined Oscar Wilde and helped ( for better or for worse ) to shine a spotlight on homosexuality and how society reacted to it for generations."
Edge - Highly Recommended
"...At the end of 2016, Moises Kaufman's "meta-play," "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde," is just shy of its twentieth anniversary. In his Director's Note, Brian Pastor argues that the work "carries broader significance than it did when it premiered." With an excellent gender-blind cast and an intimate staging, Promethean Theatre Ensemble's production ably supports Pastor's claims."
Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended
"...Promethean Theatre Ensemble’s new production of Gross Indecency is a fast-moving and compelling view of Wilde’s 1895 trials, conviction and imprisonment for the crime of homosexuality. Director Brian Pastor takes a gender-bending approach by casting female actors as Wilde and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The cast of Kaufman’s 1997 play is usually nine male actors, but Pastor has cast five women and four men. Seven of the actors play multiple roles as lawyers, judges, narrators, witnesses and others."
Picture This Post - Highly Recommended
"...Jamie Bragg’s performance as Oscar Wilde brings forth a more human side of Oscar Wilde. Those familiar with him will generally know the famous quotes, the plays, the famous last words about hating a specific type of wallpaper. Bragg, while not losing that public and cartoonish charm, flushes him out and shows the audience the man as he most likely appeared to those closest to him."
Splash Magazine - Highly Recommended
"...Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde", by Moises Kaufman, currently in production by Promethean Theatre Ensemble at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr, through December 18, 2016, is a well-staged, well-acted and thought provoking performance. The dialogue is virtually taken from Court transcripts, biographies and media reports of the sensational trials of the famous author and playwright, sentenced to hard labor in post-Victorian Britain for the crime of being gay."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Bragg is subtle and flamboyant all at once, delivering Wilde's epigrams with ease, shimmering with tearful awareness of the mortality and injustice that all the brilliance and defiance in the world cannot keep at bay. Heather Smith's Bosie is spoiled and petulant, the unworthy beauty Wilde stakes his life upon. Yet director Brian Pastor's "gender-blind" casting seems an equivocation here, making the effeminate aesthete more palatable by packaging him in a feminine body."