Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...This isn’t Taylor’s first attempt to update Chekhov—her less-than-successful “Drowning Crow” was a chaotic, hip-hop version of “The Seagull.” But “Magnolia,” a world premiere at the Goodman Theatre that benefits greatly from a large, top-drawer cast and the necessarily firm directorial hand of Anna D. Shapiro (“August: Osage County”), is a much, much better show that deserves to be seen across the country."
Chicago Sun Times - Not Recommended
"...Each of the 12 characters in Regina Taylor's new play "Magnolia" is seeking to be liberated from something, whether it be racial discrimination, sexism, familial oppression or those big, hulking creatures known as "the ghosts of the past." But frankly, the best way for them to declare their freedom would be to shake off the shackles of the play itself, removing the weight of the thuddingly heavy-handed stereotypes in which Taylor has trapped them."
Examiner - Somewhat Recommended
"...When Magnolia succeeds, it does so in spite of its script and because of director Anna D. Shapiro and leading man John Earl Jelks. The winner of the Tony for her direction of August: Osage County, Shapiro knows her way around a tale of multi-generational, genetically linked super-woes. Of these, Magnolia has plenty. Shapiro’s smart direction reins them in enough to keep the play from disintegrating into turgidity."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...As with Chekhov, Regina Taylor's text asks us to absorb large portions of densely packed information in abbreviated dramatic time, making for slow orientation to our environment. But director Anna D. Shapiro, fresh from August: Osage County, is no stranger to epic neo-American Realism, and keeps the action at all times balanced and cliché-free, while the uniformly ensemble-focused cast creates microcosmic subplots to satisfy us that when one door closes, another opens, leading the way to unforeseen opportunities."
Chicago Free Press - Somewhat Recommended
"...Anna D. Shapiro’s staging is definitive, too much so with near-melodramatic performances from John Earl Jelks and Annette O’Toole as the future and former landowners. This forced intensity can’t keep the play from breaking up into speechified depictions of desperation, not the kind of psychological isolation Chekhov intended. August Wilson found a truth in talk that utterly eludes this already obsolete remake."
Copley News Service - Somewhat Recommended
"... The characters in “Magnolia” talk much about their heritage, but from contrasting black and white perspectives. Most of the play takes place in one of two Atlanta restaurants, Black Pearl’s catering to blacks and Kerry’s to whites. The play’s major problem is that everyone just talks, sitting in chairs or standing in one of the restaurants or in the final scene on the estate."
Chicago Stage Review - Somewhat Recommended
"...Despite the attractive production, talented cast and a few stand-out scenes, Magnolia’s unbelievable characters and clichéd ‘movie for TV’ structure founders in its attempts to reach the depth of August Wilson."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Taylor faithfully maps Cherry Orchard’s aristocrats and loyal servants onto the white Forrest family, owners of the foreclosure-bound Magnolia Estate, and the small network of black servants and former servants who are practically (but, crucially, not quite) family. But while the transposition is remarkably successful thematically—Thomas (Jelks), the pragmatic black Lopakhin stand-in, encourages prodigal daughter Lily (O’Toole) to develop the estate as a new suburb for the impending white flight from the city—something’s missing emotionally."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...Taylor personalizes the struggle that change necessities in this time of turmoil. The journey that each character makes to come to terms with their new world is highly dramatized in this richly symbolized drama. This epic tale is engrossing and deeply truthful."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended
"... There are some underscoring stories in this play that deal with how people lived on these plantations and the cross mixing of races at a time when it should not have taken place. On more than one occasion Taylor's script states "The Roots of the Magnolia Tree are very deep, and its blossoms are red, yellow, white, pink, blue, black. Many different colors from the same tree". As we hear these words, we know that the characters in this play represent the blossoms and that somewhere along the line, they also come from the same roots."
