Playing with Fire (after Frankenstein) presented by Boho Theatre at Heartland Studio Theatre

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...Director Peter Marston Sullivan's superb ensemble stirs wonder and dread through the power of language. And Cox, with his growly voice, gruesome visage, and childlike, searching gaze, evokes terror and sympathy in equal measure as the outcast who wants only love."

Windy City Times - Highly Recommended

"...Barbara Fields' long-established play is a wonderful, compassionate, complex, literate and theatrical take on Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein, retaining ( unlike most movie versions ) the original late-18th-century time period as the Age of Reason not so gently became the Age of Science. Just when you think there's only talk, Fields—and this closet-sized but effective Boho production—surprises viewers with a vigorous physical scene including—yes, it's alive!—the zip-zap moment of animation."

Chicago Free Press - Highly Recommended

"...This is, most emphatically, not another interpretation inspired by the lenses of film director James Whale. This Barbara Fields adaptation hews much more closely to Mary Shelley’s novel. The monster here is not created from corpses; it is Victor Frankenstein himself—a genius of medicine and physics, but a cruel idiot in matters of the heart. Director Peter Marston Sullivan’s fine cast (acting through a “hypo-allergenic” fog that would probably offend asthmatics) make it all click."

Centerstage - Recommended

"...Stylistically confrontational, with shocks of bloodless realism and gothic panache, "Playing with Fire" is satisfyingly sinister, especially in its use of movement. The Creature (Kevin Cox) and his former self (Adam Kander) present a manic, artfully decrepit physicality that is startlingly apt, especially for working in such a small space."

Chicago Stage Review - Highly Recommended

"...This stunning production cannot be praised enough. On every level it succeeds with riveting storytelling and enthralling ambiance. BoHo Theatre strikes an astonishing balance between visual minimalism and lavishly created atmosphere. They turn the deficit of sparse physical space into a creative and ingenious benefit by utilizing the little box to it’s fullest thereby defining the script in these small parameters to extract a haunting intimacy."

Time Out Chicago - Recommended

"...Not your green, lumbering bolts-in-the-neck monster tale, Playing with Fire is more aligned with recent popular intertwinings of science fiction and human relationships, from Twilight to Lost. It’s a combination that Boho Theatre plays to ideal effect, using the intimacy of the Kleenex box–size Heartland Studio to craft a compact and excellent retelling of Shelley’s iconic Gothic novel."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended

"...Stephen M. Genovese, synonymous with the Bohemian Theatre Ensemble’s spectacular musical productions, is set designer for "Playing with Fire (After Frankenstein)" and like all of the shows performed on that tiny stage, he manages to erase all boundaries of time and space to create a show that seems to be rooted somewhere far, far away. Actually, this show takes place in the North Pole."