Bastards of Young presented by Tympanic Theatre Company at The Side Project

Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended

"...It's definitely a mixed Halloween bag. Bob Fisher's delightful and pointed "Personal Apocalypse" feels like a Harold Pinter short by way of Monty Python, as a harried employee confronts a human-resources enforcer. Clicking ballpoint pens have seldom been used this effectively. Lauren D. Yee's "Zachary Zwillinger Eats People" has a beguiling Roald Dahl quality to it, as a young man literally consumes the sweethearts he falls in love with. By contrast Rob Matsushita's "May Is a Special Time of Year," about flirting assassins on an assignation, feels derivative of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and Michael "Mick" Greco's "Northstar Navigation" has one decent premise -- a GPS that aids and abets two slack-jawed yokel robbers -- but steers itself into a swamp of cheap redneck humor."

Chicago Reader - Recommended

"...Even with all this madness on display, it's the good writing that stands out, and that's what distinguishes two late-in-the-show pieces. Lauren D. Yee's "Zachary Zwillinger Eats People"--about a man's love/eat relationship with anthropomorphized candy--balances Sarah Ruhl-esque cuteness with genuine feeling, and Bob Fisher's "Personal Apocalypse" hilariously exploits the gap between what's said and done during an interrogation led by a calmly menacing bureaucrat (the excellent Danielle Forrester)."

Chicago Free Press - Somewhat Recommended

"...Always interesting, (hapless robbers being helped by their GDS; the savage, verbal courtship of two assassins), these shorts do not always live up to the dramatic inventiveness of their subjects—particularly in the first act. There, only a sensually blunt monologue (S.L. Daniels’ dark and amusing “Night Vision”) about a sex worker’s abilities to discern the hidden monsters within her partners has any long-term resonance."