Grounded Reviews
Chicago Reader- Highly Recommended
"...Director Lexi Saunders has fashioned a spartan production that depends entirely on the show's lone actor, Amber Kelly, to engage and unnerve us, something she does with remarkable power and grace. Through it all Kelly keeps us in her crosshairs, and in the process she, and Brant, open up our eyes to the fresh hell that is postmodern warfare."
Chicago On the Aisle- Recommended
"...Playing the girl in the flight suit, in this first effort by the new Chicago company Theater of Thought, is Amber Kelly. And right up front, one must offer a brisk salute (her character is, after all, a major) for the sheer courage required by this prodigious assignment. For about 80 minutes, the solitary actor must sustain a narrative arc that blows through arrogance, shock, dismay, resignation, confusion, boredom and terror. In the performance I saw, Kelly hit most of those marks dead center."
Stage and Cinema- Recommended
"...Besides delivering a case history in self-destruction wrought by remote devastation, Grounded passes judgment on our “endless war” of choice in the Middle East. How is the safe distancing of this drone pilot, cold-blooded annihilation imploding from her trigger finger, any different from the removal of most Americans from the carnage wrought in our name? War never felt so impersonal than now. But some things won’t change. Wedding parties get blown up and children, innocent by definition, die. That’s on us, whether close up or in Nevada."
Around The Town Chicago- Highly Recommended
"...The show is much more complex than drones=bad, but it certainly doesn’t depict the way they are currently used as good. Thinking that you’ve become a god only to realize that you’re really Medusa is a horrifying process, but as the show demonstrates, the realization is the first step toward recovery. For the Chicago theatre, Grounded is an important demonstration of how to do stories about violence in a safe manner, which is actually much more affecting."