Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...When the script burbles with occasional first-person dialogue, things get measurably better: "I will warm the sheets like an electric toaster," goes one of play's more charming lines. (Kaitlin Byrd is a standout in the cast, and her look feels very much of the period.) An eager sort of energy drives this production, and while it's not entirely successful it has a pleasantly cumulative effect."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...Holmquist has devised some striking stage images, such as Captain Cat surrounded by the shades of his drowned friends, their arms slowly waving as if they were still floating in the water. But there's little in Ian Zywica's scenic design or Seth Reinick's lighting to help us distinguish between the nighttime and daytime portions of the play—a crucial failing, since Thomas's theme is the primacy of the nighttime dream life over the routine of daily activity. As a result, Caffeine's uneven presentation comes off more as a series of seriocomic sketches than the dramatic journey through a dreamworld that Thomas had in mind."
Windy City Times - Recommended
"...Director Paul S. Holmquist's ensemble takes a stanza or two to find the rhythm—and to draw the audience into Dylan's world. There's a shade of self-conscious artifice to the first moments of the piece, an air of Dylan-worship in the air that imbues the words with precious ( and not in the good sense of the word ) reverence. But by the time Dan Granata launches into the wild and whimsical description of the scratch and babble in Mrs. Organ Morgan's general store, the amazingly vivid world of Under Milk Wood's small seaside town is shining through."
Chicago Free Press - Highly Recommended
"...Director Paul S. Holmquist works in a carousel of creativity ultimately producing an evening that bounds and soars with sorrows and delights. The magnificent cast (including Dan Granata, working wonders with body and voice, and the elegant Elise Kauzlaric) clicks in right beside him. With energy and timing (Charles Filipov, Kate Nowrocki), romantic wanderlust (Jacqui Jackson, Callie Munson, Dave Skvarla) and clipped fervor (Paul Myers, Kaitlin Byrd) they produce an evening of magnificent theater."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...There’s just enough poetic whimsy in Thomas’s work (a fastidious widow keeps a rein on her two husbands’ ghosts; a blind sea captain communes with the dead) to suggest his influence on such modern playwrights as Sarah Ruhl and Noah Haidle. Yet Thomas’s facility with language still feels fresher and more authentic than plays now making the regional-theater rounds. Perhaps it’s that Milk Wood was originally penned for radio, but where some plays rely on visual beauty, Thomas simply wrote it."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...This 100 minute on-act will grab you and hold you throughout. The wonderfully rich imagery from Thomas’ poetic language is told with authentic truthfulness by this amazing cast. Come to the downtown Storefront Theatre to see what Chicago ensemble actors can do with a complex play. You’ll be amazed."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended
"...It has been a number of years since I first encountered Dylan Thomas' fictional and lyrical village of Llareggub, and in Caffeine Theatre's magical account it is a most welcome re-acquaintance. In fact, this production at the Chicago DCA Storefront Theater may be one of the biggest surprises of the emerging fall theatre season. Director Paul S. Holmquist, who so memorably helmed "Busman's Holiday" at Lifeline earlier this year, has whipped up a production simmering over with delight, invention and eloquence. His handsome 9-member ensemble would be a credit to most Equity troupes in town, so completely do they beguile and draw us into Thomas' often otherworldly realm."
Chicago Theater Beat - Somewhat Recommended
"...for the want of a nail, the battle was lost and for the want of a critical performance technique, the world of this play dissipates into fragilely connected scenes. This leads to what Caffeine Theatre’s production lacks most–a sense of place. A tragically missing element, since Thomas wrote Under Milk Wood as his response to the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here, in his imaginary Welsh town, fecund with dreams and desire, with the power of language alone, he took his stand against total nuclear annihilation."