Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...Despite the very honorable attempts of actors like Ryan Walters, Kurt Chiang, Tien Doman (playing, Lord help her, The Amusement) and Anthony Courser (who is just fantastic, and truthful, as Princess the elephant), the piece still can't enlighten or satisfy us as to why the music started at Bathhouse John's park and what made it, and him, come to a crashing stop."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...Director Halena Kays's shadowy, carnivalesque Hypocrites production features winning design and engaging performances (Torrence's impish Coughlin is a marvel). But there's no meaningful context to give the onslaught of fragmentary images any significance."
Centerstage - Highly Recommended
"... How the audience feels about Bathhouse John when they leave is left entirely up to them: but the Hypocrites insure that they are entertained while watching. Torrence and cast are all skilled clowns, and the show is filled from top to bottom with fantastic clown yuks ranging from acrobatics to audience-participation gags. The Chopin basement is used remarkably well by set designer Lizzie Bracken; Alison Siple's costumes are finely tuned and dynamic, speaking wordless volumes about the characters within them. And Jared Moore’s lights are (literally) everywhere. The show is highly worth seeing; it’s beautiful, thoughtful, and challenging."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Taken as vignettes, many of Torrence's pieces, especially those involving a drunken, disfigured elephant reimagined as a clown (Anthony Courser), sustain themselves on their own giddy irreverence. Yet this time around, little of it seems to feed into a convincing greater narrative or the play's shoehorned, vice-vs.-purity conflict. And therein lies the best and worst of the Hypocrites-and for that matter the Neo-Futurists, with whom there is much crossover affiliation-in a nutshell. Kays and Torrence's surprises, entertaining as they may be-ensemble movement sequences, spoken-word songs, adorning audience members in dresses and taking them on a park ride-begin to feel like quirk for quirk's sake as the central characters and their historical context sink back into the footnotes they're unearthed from."
Stage and Cinema - Somewhat Recommended
"...Questions, questions and more questions can have a numbing effect on an audience, even as we are distracted and often impressed by the tongue-in-cheek fun and occasionally sweet theatrical shenanigans. And even though the performers take a few audience members for a spin on the set, the storytellers never give the spectators a chance to get on the ride."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...IVYWILD is really 20% history and 80% lighted-hearted frolic. And it adds up to 100% entertainment from on another amusing Kays-Torrence ride."
