Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...The cage is meant to be symbolic of Hedda's entrapment, her "caged" subservience to men, the "imprisoning" role society demands she play as a woman. More than once, men stare into the cage, lit from above by a hot spotlight, and deliver lines as if Hedda were inside. There's even a fluttering-wings sound cue for Hedda's "liberation," which consists of her shooting herself in the head at center stage. (In Ibsen's play, she kills herself with a muffled shot, in a rear room, behind a drawn curtain). It's all too much, a travesty of the original Hedda Gabler, whose protagonist's lust for life, powers of manipulation, and indomitable will to charm drive the play in any version worth its salt."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Director Max Truax has assembled an ensemble capable of portraying these extravagant emotions, retaining control of their text even when locking eyes with playgoers barely an arm's length away. In the title role, Aayisha Humphrey delivers a spellbinding performance, pursuing her single-minded schemes with the leisurely concentration of a snake stalking its prey, riveting our attention for the 100 intermissionless minutes of play's duration as surely as her bad behavior transcends our disapproval to merit our sympathies."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Additionally, the alley-style staging of the play’s more realistic scenes more often than not fails to connect the actor’s movements to the character’s psychological underpinnings. In the end, it’s just bodies moving through space. Add wildly varying acting styles from the production’s various cast members and you have a play as disjointed as the title character herself. If this is intentional, that’s all well and good. It is not successful."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...You can't keep a bad/mad woman down. Not to be confused with A Doll's House, where Ibsen offers an almost feminist defense of a vastly underestimated wife, his poisonous 1891 domestic drama Hedda Gabler depicts a very different "helpmate." Here a bored and bitter housewife transforms her contempt for her scholar-husband into domestic tragedy. Based on a spare 110-minute translation and one-act adaptation by Chicago playwright Nigel O'Hearn, Red Tape Theatre's terse new version, A Hedda Gabler, directed by the always resourceful Max Truax (who also staged Ibsen's Brand for Red Tape), ponders and probes the title character like a living autopsy."
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...It's ironic that Ibsen's name became synonymous with realism in the earliest twentieth century, because most of his plays aren't realistic, but the best-known ones are. To a person who is used to thinking of Ibsen as a writer primarily concerned with the clash between our responsibility to society and our responsibility to ourselves, or to a person who has no preconceived ideas about Ibsen at all (theatre people often forget that Hedda Gabler is only famous to us), a heavily stylized and streamlined adaptation seems like a reasonable experiment."
NewCity Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Performed on a postcard-size stage, director Max Truax's production feels constricted and does not allow sufficient room to breathe. Whereas the minimalist stage setting should allow for better character development, it instead hits the audience over the head with metaphors such as the bird cage hanging over Hedda's head. To even further drive the point home, the characters often gaze at it when discussing their limited options. The lighting and the sound design are also far too severe. A case in point is the repeated sound of flapping bird wings which are so loud and menacing they could be confused with something out of "Jurassic Park." A leaky pipe is ultimately put to good use but even then the constant dripping often distracts from the performance."
