Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...Director Anna D. Shapiro has cast this play with her usual savvy craft, even though the lead is her own husband. Barford is just terrific. As he proved in “August: Osage County,” he finds it easy to forge lovable, wholly unconventional eccentrics—sweet, vulnerable characters who aren’t fully at ease inside the obligatory confines of the world. At one point, Walter forces himself into a gray suit and tells his wife he will head off to work. In a moment that manages to be both deeply sad and funny, Barford looks like a shaggy dog obliged to dress up in denial of his own doggyness. You immediately get a sense of the incredibly resonant Steppenwolf actor this man will become, as he ages."
Chicago Sun Times
- Recommended
"...The Chicago debut of Carpenter's play, which opened this weekend at Steppenwolf Theatre under the direction of Anna D. Shapiro, has its charms, though at times it can feel a bit more earthbound than airborne. Perhaps that's the whole point as it captures that sense of life as being hopelessly tethered while at any minute also becoming dangerously unmoored."
Daily Herald
- Recommended
"...The cast is first-rate. Carpenter has crafted some wonderfully intimate scenes (the one where Maria tells Mikey about her relationship with her baby's father is nearly flawless) which unfold seamlessly under Anna D. Shapiro's sure and steady direction. But while Carpenter is careful not to overdo the whimsy, the second act deflates. I would argue that it doesn't inspire much of an emotional investment. And yet, the more I reflected on "Up," the more I liked it as a flight of fancy re-imagined as a cautionary tale."
Chicago Reader
- Somewhat Recommended
"...In Carpenter's world of belabored metaphors, Walter's practical mail-carrier wife is entirely earthbound, and his 15-year-old slacker son is entirely untethered. Carpenter seems to start the play anew every 20 minutes, as though searching for a point. If one exists, director Anna D. Shapiro and her entertaining cast can't find it--perhaps in part because the actors are inexplicably confined to an upstage corner much of the evening."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Director Anna Shapiro punches up the drama with great performances from her actors and collaborating with her design team on a stunning physical production that emphasizes both earthbound confinement and lofty expanses of the imagination. Daniel Ostling's set in particular is a great visual metaphor of cramped suburban rooms supporting a stage-width platform for Petit to balance on in the bright blue sky."
Chicago Free Press
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Anchored by Ian Barford’s demented father, Anna D. Shapiro’s sturdy staging tries to chart a path between these contradictory conclusions, with Lauren Katz excellent as the much-pilloried mother and Jake Cohen almost moving as the teenage son who discovers that the only freedom work offers is independence from poverty. Rachel Brosnahan’s unwed mother may come right out of “Juno” (she’s preternaturally wise about her plight) but Brosnahan gives her depth and dignity. Martha Lavey is characteristically sly as a telemarketing fraudster who can both read fortunes and engineer misfortune."
Centerstage
- Somewhat Recommended
".... There's great promise in the setup and Bridget Carpenter's script flows along nicely throughout the first act. But like the balloons tied to Walter's chair, "Up" begins to deflate during the volatile second act, as the story takes a few too many twists and turns. While this "Up" is engaging, in the end it won't take you to 16,000 feet."
Time Out Chicago
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Up isn’t as cloyingly, whimsically quirky as this may sound. Carpenter writes some lovely domestic scenes, and her thematic resonances play out clearly in Shapiro’s well-calibrated production. The actors rise to the occasion, too; a second-act scene of nervy teenage disclosure between Brosnahan and Cohen—terrific young talents who reaffirm Erica Daniels’s casting acumen—left us agape. But a bit too much remains half-composed in Carpenter’s script: Is Walter an eccentric to be admired or just mentally ill?"
ChicagoCritic
- Highly Recommended
"...Bridget Carpenter’s new play, Up, now playing at Steppenwolf, is a playful show that invites its audience to ponder the ways we live our lives. Based on the true story of Larry Walters, a California man who in 1982 flew to an altitude of 16,000 feet by attaching 45 helium-filled balloons to his lawn chair, Up is about what life is and what we imagine it to be. The show is light and accessible, but has enough depth for even the most ardent of intellectual theatre aficionados."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Recommended
"...Directed by Anna D. Shapiro, "Up" is a warm, often funny and very tender look at how our dreams and imaginations can influence our lives. She uses the stage well but is somewhat hindered by the marvelous set by Dan Ostling. Ostling has captured a basement work area to perfection and a wonderful kitchen, but because they are boxes, sound from the kitchen area gets lost and the audience on the left side of the stage has a little problem hearing. This is a shame as Ms. Carpenter's words are strong. The original music by David Singer is marvelous and Rachel Rockwell's choreography (mostly for Mr. Hernandez) is striking."
Chicago Theater Beat
- Recommended
"...The director, Anna D. Shapiro, does a fantastic job as usual taking the time to develop each character and constructing a performance that uses the details in the dialogue and the ability of the actors to capture the emotional states of their characters to build the turmoil this family is going through."
