Chicago Tribune - Not Recommended
"...Averre's songs aren't all terrible — his incontrovertible melodic skills do emerge briefly in Act 2 — but to try to review them in this context would be, I fear, akin to judging Meryl Streep while she was working in a massage parlor. I'd say the same of the performers, a group that includes such young Chicago talent as Samantha Pauly, who deserves, and surely will receive, far more than her role as Pepper Johnson; Julia Rose Duray and Claire Lilley. And a few dudes. Whatever."
Time Out Chicago - Not Recommended
"...If Helldrivers was the kind of campy, larky production aimed for a cabaret-style staging—the sort of thing Chicago's Hell in a Handbag Productions often tailors so well to an informal, bar-fueled space like Mary's Attic—you might be more willing to forgive its dramaturgical failings. But this is a fully-Equity, commercially backed piece on the Royal George's main stage, whose producers claim they have their eyes on Broadway. If that's going to be a real goal, Helldrivers is far from road-ready."
Stage and Cinema - Not Recommended
"...The songs aside (the singers are every bit as good as their mikes), what rots out this bottom-feeder is its kneejerk, pathological, serial fixation on bimbo sluts; car, bondage and furry toy fetishes; penises ("Little Lucky" gets a spotlight and there's an elephant codpiece for another protuberance); boob swings; daddy issues; schizophrenia; a gratuitous slam at Hamilton; and cornball cracker jokes-a show that earns more groans than laughs by at least two laps. Like the race itself, it goes nowhere fast."
ChicagoCritic - Not Recommended
"...At 2 hours, 35 minutes with wacky actions and lame plot twists, I was with many in the opening night audience praying for this horrible show to end. If the producers have any hope to get this show to Broadway or even regional theatre, they must trim the show, make the women NOT squeak and have the guys be also more understandable. That, with a complete refocus, a revised book and some memorable tunes, then maybe it could work. Why not make this show a jukebox musical with those cute bubblegum rock tune like "Where the Boys Are" or those Elvis films from the 60's?"
Around The Town Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...We have another Pre-Broadway World Premiere on a Chicago stage. While this is exciting and adds glamour to our already wonderful "theater scene", I am sorry to report that this one is not all that I anticipated. The hype that we heard from the onset was that it would be a fast, furious and funny musical about auto racing and the people who drive, love drivers and want to be involved with drivers."
Chicago Theatre Review - Not Recommended
"...This is one of the worst pieces of theatre to hit Chicago in recent memory. There’s nothing to recommend it, except maybe for the fine performances of its talented cast. Unfortunately they’re all being wasted in this production, locked in a show that isn’t even worthy of wasted, late night audiences of college frat boys. It’s insulting, embarrassing and a quagmire of squandered creativity."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Not Recommended
"...The show’s creators are trying to lampoon the campy beach blanket and car racing movies of the 1960’s. But to mock effectively, one should be better than the original subject and “Helldrivers of Daytona” is merely a part of a lamentable tradition, not a satiric improvement. I’m all for sex and vulgarity in a musical, but they should be garnished by wit (and not lowest brow phallic jokes) and characters we can care abut, at least a little bit. Ah well, nobody sets out to create a bad show and I’m sure everyone involved in “Helldrivers of Daytona” is a nice person. But their musical doesn’t work."
Splash Magazine - Not Recommended
"...The whole production is totally misguided. amateurish, boring, sexist, and morbidly obscene. Instead of playing around with sexual innuendos, they jam them in your face in the most cliched and overblown ways you can imagine. There are even disturbing jokes that allude to bestiality, incest, and rape. In the press release the show's librettist, Marc Saltzman, described "Helldrivers" as "just big, loud, vulgar, sexy fun", which translates to, "just straight up bad theatre". Halfway through Act Two, and literally 26 pages into my notepad, I finally just gave up and wrote down the phrase "what is wrong with humanity?" What I saw on opening night was totally unacceptable, insulting, and downright humiliating.The actors deserve so much better and so do we."
NewCity Chicago - Not Recommended
"...The musical also tries too hard to make light of the sexist nature of the source material. Numbers like “Becoming a Woman” (with its graphic description of puberty) appear out of nowhere and are presented like monologues from an altogether different, likely more entertaining musical. In the end, “Helldrivers of Daytona” is neither the campy fun the title promises nor the more insightful musical it at times strives to be."
