Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...What comes through clearly, however, is the passion Modersohn-Becker had for her work, her life, and her friends, and the anguish she felt at being torn between a quiet life as a country hausfrau and her desires to immerse herself in Paris's artistic circles."
Chicago Sun Times
- Recommended
"...Directed by Kate Hendrickson with great sensitivity and a sense of true emotional wildness, the production (with a set by the director and Emily Lotspeich, lighting by Gina Patterson, costumes by the director and Beata Pilcha and music by Alison Chesley), is as beautiful and richly haunted as a Modersohn-Becker painting."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...This latest play, based on the tortured friendship between painter Paula Modersohn-Becker and poet Rainer Maria Rilke, adopts a less subversive tone--it's an elegant, reserved chamber piece--but Prestininzi still delights in poetic ambiguities. He provides little back story or historical context for his characters; they could be anybody. Thus his portrait of romantic and artistic frustration is by turns generic and archetypal, although under Kate Hendrickson's fluid, sensitive direction it's mostly the latter."
Windy City Times
- Recommended
"...The efficiency of Prestininzi's expository progress and precision of his dialogue gives the impression of a prototype for a BBC teleplay, stopping but temporarily on the live stage. Under Kate Hendrickson's direction, however, a capable cast led by Betsy Zajko as the exuberant—at times, bordering on manic—Paula and John Kahara as the withdrawn Rainer acquit themselves with sufficient gemütlichkeit to render our history lesson a pleasant, if unchallenging, experience."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...Though Beholder is by no means everyone’s cup of tea, those who hold Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet close to their hearts will find sticking through the show’s obscure beginnings worthwhile. Strong performances and crisp, mercifully humorous writing make this uncompromising play a taste worth cultivating."
ChicagoCritic
- Recommended
"...Beholder is a romantic work and a tribute to the human spirit manifested by Otto, Clara, Rilke and especially Paula. Paula, in a charming performance by Betsy Zajko comes to life as an exuberantly radiant free spirit. You’ll become captivated with Paula and her verve. She believed that “simplicity of form” creates great art. Her total commitment to her craft is appreciated. “Beholder” allows us to know Paula Modersohn-Becker as a person."
