Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Landau’s humanely and unpretentiously staged premiere enhances a witty, seductive, live-wire and greatly entertaining dark comedy that you just don’t want to end and you just don’t want to miss. The one thing it most assuredly has in common with its illustrious predecessor is that it lands with an audience. A Chicago audience."
Chicago Sun Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...Where the play falls short is in its heavy dependence on standard-issue, sitcom-meets-mobster cliches. The whole thing has an undeniable zest, but also feels far from seamless as it lurches from behavioral comedy to urban tragedy to social critique. And its characters -- the young genius undone by his not-so-streetwise escapades, the Maalox-gobbling thug, the female cop with hidden baking skills -- all feel like they've been pressed from pre-existing molds."
Daily Herald - Recommended
"...Superior Donuts" marks the first of Letts' plays set in his adopted hometown, and he peppers it with Chicago references. Jefferson Park, Truman College, a couple of Chicago Bears, the Magikist sign that once loomed over the Kennedy Expressway and the cougar that recently prowled Roscoe Village all get a mention. But ultimately, the play's strength rests with its wry writing and its memorable lead character who finds his mooring."
SouthtownStar - Highly Recommended
"...skillfully directed by Tina Landau, is so sharp and darkly humorous, the characters so ironic and human and the dialogue so witty and smart that I wanted to return to my seat and see it again after the lights went down."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...The real star of the show is young Steppenwolf ensemble member Jon Michael Hill, utterly winning as Franco. Funny, sharp, and brimming with restless energy, his joyful character is a counterpoint and antidote to Letts’s sad old men."
Windy City Times - Recommended
"...Tracy Letts' Superior Donuts is a modest, solidly entertaining lesser work—lesser, inevitably, than Letts' Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County. Donuts might not be superior, but director Tina Landau succeeds in telling an involving story with both Chicago-centric and universal appeal."
Chicago Free Press - Somewhat Recommended
"...Like Brett Neveu’s “Gas for Less” at Goodman Theatre, this is a good-hearted tribute to the tenacity of endangered family businesses. The terrific cast, featuring Kate Buddeke as a donut-eating cop (of all things) and Jane Alderman as a lonely Uptown eccentric, are hobbled by the script’s entropy, which undermines their splendid energy. Of course, “August: Osage County” would be the proverbial hard act to follow. But this too-familiar fare doesn’t even put up a fight."
Gay Chicago Magazine - Highly Recommended
"...Director Tina Landau and the picture perfect ensemble treat the characters as old friends, flawlessly executing the beguiling humor with depth and restrained intensity. There are some characters and situations that could be construed as cliché, but that is more so because we have met real people like them facing similar dilemmas, rather than because of easy or predictable dramatic choices."
EpochTimes - Highly Recommended
"...his fine cast directed by Tina Landau tell Mr. Letts story with just the right touches. Although the basic story is one of a serious and real nature, the comical moments are magical. No matter your race or ethnicity, you will see the humor in this production. Each of the characters has a story to tell and as the play unfolds we learn about their pasts, but in the case of our main characters, we get to also see what true friendship brings to their futures."
Copley News Service - Highly Recommended
"...If “August: OsageCounty” is a turbulent symphony of a drama, then “Superior Donuts” is a chamber work, smaller in scale but still with resonance beneath its deceptively simple surface. The prestige of Letts’s name and the merits of the play should earn the script a life beyond its Steppenwolf run. But future producers would do well to retain the present cast in its entirety. Under Tina Landau’s spot-on direction, the ensemble creates a set of flawless performances."
Centerstage - Highly Recommended
"...Letts' seriocomic meditation on change may not have the epic scope of his hugely successful, multi-award-winning "August: Osage County." However, it is a poignant and delightful play, with a real affection for its characters and their world, and very worth seeing in Tina Landau's warm, finely detailed, production."
HollywoodChicago.com - Somewhat Recommended
"...It’s a story that’d ring true for many audience members: a tale of a beloved but rough town whose very soulfulness is being lost to big business. Still, it’s chock full of the absurd: campy bad guys clad in overcoats, overused “Star Trek” nerds-are-funny jokes, jabs at Starbucks and even some unsettling jeers at the gay community."
Edge - Highly Recommended
"...It’s not for nothing that Steppenwolf Theatre is renowned. This is a top-notch drama with strong comedic overtones. The set, by Loy Arcenas, is the counter room in the donut shop. It’s so funky you can nearly smell the deep fryer. The costumes by Ana Kuzmanic are spot on. Or maybe "spotted on" in their grungy-jeans authenticity. Tina Landau’s direction in conjunction with Christopher Akerlind’s lighting design allows for the story to move along briskly while carving out moments of quiet intimacy. The cast of nine, headed by Michael McKean and Jon Michael Hill is flawless."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...It was written by one of the company’s ensemble members, Tracy Letts, and it drips with the kind of soulful, energized sarcasm that has long characterized his work as an actor and playwright. And while it resembles a cocktail-napkin doodle more than a Picasso, this final play of the city’s 2007-2008 season is the first to make localized, contemporary situation comedy—that popular medium theater surrendered to television long ago—and top-drawer stage craftsmanship happen at the same time. The resulting treat is a low comedy any Chicagoan can get high off of."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...Ultimately, “Superior Donuts” works mainly due to the fully developed Arthur and the empathetic Franco characters. Max, the Russian, is the comic relief character filled with sharp barbs. The bitingly stinging dialogue filled with dark humor establishes Letts as a playwright adept at realistic and naturalistic story telling."
