Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...The script itself has its moments, and it certainly articulates the issues with passion and, at times, eloquence. The best scene, actually, involves the most vocal bigot in the show, a character named Daniel Baker, played with relish by Steve Silver, who takes the microphone and argues against tolerance with enough hate-fueled intensity to end Act 1 with a shudder. But there also are some interesting scenes between a character named Tawfiq Qabbani (Rom Barkhordar), a Muslim businessman who learns that his pals at the Naperville Chamber of Commerce can't be trusted, and Ted Baker (Mark Ulrich), the head of that chamber and a Machiavellian deal-maker who would make any Chicago alderman blush."
Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"...Though inspired by the post-2001 “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy in New York City, “Mosque Alert” is rooted far closer to home. It is loosely based on several actual cases involving the creation of Islamic community centers and mosques in Naperville and other parts of DuPage County. (Consult your program and you will find the details of four such cases, and learn that all these proposed projects ultimately won approval, with construction underway on three of them.)"
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...Which isn't to say Mosque Alert isn't effective, even important. But it's not consistently so, either. The story that matters-the manufacturing of strategies, allegiances, lies, and betrayals that may get an Islamic center built or nixed-often gets put on hold while ancillary personal issues play themselves out. It makes for a long two-plus hours, made longer on opening night by the underrehearsed tentativeness of director Edward Torres's Silk Road Rising production."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...It's a snappy two hours, fluidly directed by Edward Torres on Dan Stratton's beige-toned, thrust-stage unit set, with actors swiftly rearranging basic furniture pieces and windows to suggest the play's locations. The energetic company genuinely conveys the mixed feelings of disappointment, anger, betrayal, concern, cynicism, sincerity and hopefulness through which most of them ( but not quite all ) pass. The issues of Mosque Alert are large, real and occurring HERE and NOW, so attention must be paid."
Theatre By Numbers - Recommended
"...Director Edward Torres contends with many overlapping circles in this play. Ted and Tawfiq are not only connected through work; their wives are also best friends. As if that didn't provide enough story, their adult children struggle with friendships and intertwine romantically while conflict over the mosque grows. Torres smartly stages group scenes through sharp pictoral contrast. Even if you miss part of a character's pro- or con-mosque argument, the visuals make it clear which character is on which side in the debate. Scenes in the privacy of one's own home provide a wider range of movement, often escalating into circles where spouses are ready to pounce on one another. Office scenes display a stiffer, more contained action, and outdoor scenes between the young adults are all sharp diagonals and two-against-one triangles."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...Though the character conflicts can seem overthought and predetermined, the domestic divisions strike home, as one mother and son support the mosque and a father and daughter reject it. Among the traditional citizens, Ted Baker (Mark Ulrich) is the chamber of commerce honcho whose real worship is money. His marketing-minded, quietly tippling wife Emily (Rengin Atay) struggles with a penchant for racial profiling even as she aims to launch a hijab-centered fashion line with Syrian refugee Aminah Qabbani (Rula Gardenier), ever dreaming of Damascus but assimilating to America."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...Silk Road co-artistic director Jamil Khoury sought input for a story about the construction of a mosque from hundreds of people through online workshops, staged readings, college productions, social media, and other platforms. In the resulting play, he seems to have attempted to represent everyone he met, and his eleven characters each advocate a different set of arguments. It's unfortunate that such an endeavor would premiere with a rushed staging, which was clearly under rehearsed at opening and struggled to make the leap from web-based content to live action. However, the project is bigger than the production, and in terms of serving a community by providing a discussion forum, the play can be considered a success."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended
"...Jamil Khoury and the cast and crew of Mosque Alert allow a range of perspectives to be heard and offer no easy answers—the fact that so many of the characters are convinced they are right only reinforces this. Sometimes it seems Khoury is trying to nudge the audience to a certain viewpoint, but ultimately, he puts his faith in the ideas and reflections that his script will generate, and in the audience that must choose how they will react to any future mosque alerts."
Huffington Post - Highly Recommended
"...Employing expert performers and accredited directors has earned Silk Road a loyal and astute following. "Mosque Alert" in the seasoned hands of Edward Torres is no exception. Granted, even the play's college productions last year were destined to sparkle with lines like, "Can't we blame everything on Saudi Arabia and call it a day?" "
Third Coast Review - Recommended
"...Mosque Alert is a timely play that exposes the double standards a society of immigrants can impose on itself. It reveals cowardly natures, greed, suspicion and barely masked hatred, but it does so evenly, revealing the weaknesses in all of its characters and in doing so, pointing out the humanity in all of them as well. Samar says it best in the end, when the four young friends are reconciling and demonstrating the best hope for tolerance and change that our nation has, the younger more resilient and open-minded generation, “But Carl, what you need to understand is that Muslims are neither angels nor demons; we’re human beings, just like everyone else. If white people can have a spectrum of beliefs, why can’t we? You’re holding us to a standard that just isn’t fair.”"
