Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...This may be the most unabashedly sentimental piece of theater you'll see this year, but it avoids mawkishness by rooting itself in human frailty, and the overwhelming need for forgiveness that same frailty begs us to show one another. "Regret is a heart that keeps falling," one song tells us. The plain-spoken poetry on display provides a safety net for the heavy-hearted."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Director Maugeri and his team have found inspiration in such acknowledged sources as William Kennedy's novel Ironweed, T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men," the songs of Tom Waits and country music legend Harry McClintock, and (if you ask me) Samuel Beckett, too."
Daily Herald
- Highly Recommended
"...But for all its artistry, seamlessly integrated by Maugeri, the show's strength involves its human element: the interaction between the actors and their artful counterparts. Their subtle movements -- a nod of a head, a twitch of an arm, a slump of a shoulder -- animate the inanimate. And the fixed expression becomes expressive; the carved wood lives and breathes and wonderful theater ensues."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...Under the direction of Frank Maugeri, these elements combine to form a haunting and forlorn meditation on loss, regret, and the longing for redemption. Done with great technical skill and unvarying tenderness, this is deeply affecting work."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Irreparable loss and sublime, divine forgiveness—both are embedded in the brutal poetry of Boneyard Prayer, which surely stands as one of Redmoon's finest achievements."
Chicago Free Press
- Highly Recommended
"...From the moment Alex Balestrieri, as Martin, pops out of the graveyard’s surface like an elfin magician, he establishes himself with firm charm and ease. He corrals several powerful production numbers with the strength of a horse-wrangler and presents Martin’s ultimate peace of mind with a humble grace. As Alice, Kasey Foster highlights the show with reassured heart. Her vocalizing is enriched with hard grit and her handling of Kim’s most powerful song (in which Alice remembers all the beautiful things that have slipped through her fingers) is the show’s most poignant and subtly acted moment. Brandon Boler, Maegen Jenkins and Alice Wedoff all boldly accompany Balestrieri and Foster on their journey, helping to provide the type of individualized entertainment that only a Redmoon production such as this one can."
Copley News Service
- Recommended
"...I left the Redmoon theater insecure in my reaction to the show. I was impressed by the gravity and sincerity of the performances and the creativity of much of the staging. But I thought the first half hour was boring and my emotions weren’t engaged until the storyline was filled out in the final half of the evening. It comes down to individual taste. Some viewers will relish “Boneyard Prayer” as a superior miniature of loss and the search for forgiveness. Others will find it tiresome and lacking in theatrical energy and thematic substance. In the final analysis, it’s worth seeing just to be in the company of those two incomparably flesh and blood and anguished puppets."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...Employing dirt the way Metamorphoses used water—the set and cast are caked in it, and as the gravediggers do their thing, peat hangs in the air like dread— Boneyard is surely the messiest show Chicago has seen in ages. But Tracy Otwell’s spare, gothic scenic design is all clean precision, even if it leaves grit under the fingernails (and John Horan’s sophisticated lights warrant superlative praise)."
ChicagoCritic
- Highly Recommended
"...Excellent music from Rob Cruz’s piano and fine voices from Alex Balestrieri, Kasey Foster and Alice Wedoff contributed stellar operatic elements to this wonderful show. This show is quite a special treat."
