Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Landau, who directed one of the pieces at the Public, helms all three in Chicago. She has nixed most of the scenery used in New York and, with the help of designer James Schuette, given the pieces the kind of primal theatricality that McCraney clearly intended (theater specialists will recognize the use of Landau's Viewpoints method). The effect is to brilliantly root the plays' youthful irreverence in the timelessly guttural. That's Landau's masterstroke. She gets all sides of a writer who, unbelievably, is just beginning."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...There is something particularly wondrous about watching a young, immensely gifted playwright find his or her footing early on. The characters and emotions created feel so close to raw experience and youthful perception in such work, and the sudden and inescapable pain of lost innocence possesses a sharpness that can cut to the bone one moment and light up the stage with pure sassiness the next."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...I'd rather be puzzled by this incredibly ambitious and accomplished work than satisfied by something less. "The Brother/Sister Plays" is comparable to Angels in America, not just in terms of its length and preoccupations but also because of the mythopoetic territory it opens up. Like Tony Kushner, McCraney offers a sacred site, a meeting ground for America's living and dead, dream and reality, truth and denial."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...The total time required for these chronicles is three hours and 40 minutes, but this is not another August: Osage County. Steppenwolf Theatre's repertory arrangement permits playgoers to attend the two-hour double-ticket of The Brothers Size and Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet, or the 100-minute In the Red and Brown Water, on different nights, while fans of festival theater can take in all three in a single day on weekends. But make no mistake—McCraney is a star on the rise. No matter in what increments you discover this for yourself, you won't be sorry."
Copley News Service - Highly Recommended
"...The Brother/Sister Plays elevated Tarell Alvin McCraney into the international spotlight as a hot new playwright while he was still in his 20’s. McCraney wrote the three plays at different times and they have been packaged into a unified cycle, now receiving its local premiere in an astonishingly right production at the Steppenwolf Theatre."
Talkin Broadway - Recommended
"...McCraney and Landau risk offering too much of a good thing. The theatricality, while effective, tends to draw attention to itself and away from the content. Still, the overall impression left is enormous. We see the interconnection between members of a community and between generations—both successive generations and ones separated by centuries. It's worth the effort of preparation and attention it takes to take it all in."
Centerstage - Highly Recommended
"...The stories that snake through the three interwoven plays included in The Brother/Sister Plays take place in a low-income neighborhood near the Bayou in Lousiana during the "distant present" – a time period that may sound odd but perfectly encapsulates the timeless timeliness the show invokes. Young playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney has created a complex, multi-generational world that unfolds over the course of the three shows, constructing an intimate portrait of a culture that is rarely given full life on the stage."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...
The Brothers Size, the apex of the trilogy, again employs the simplest of plots: the conflict between the ant and the grasshopper, or in this case responsible Ogun Size (K. Todd Freeman) and his insouciant, ex-con brother, Oshooshi (Phillip James Brannon). But in McCraney’s hands, this pen-sketch, hinging on a few simple incidents, becomes heartbreaking. The fury and desolation with which Ogun receives the news that Oshooshi has gotten himself in trouble with the law once again, and the brothers’ duet to Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness,” a reprieve before their final separation, have the gut-wrenching profundity of theater at its most accomplished. On its own, The Brothers Size has tragic heft; in conjunction with the other plays, which describe the full arc of Ogun’s sorrows, it’s a shard of obsidian, a three-dimensional blues."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...After seeing all three plays in one day, let me state that director Tina Landau and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney have a worthy trilogy that once they cut some of the gimmicks (like the over use of spoken stage directions) and once they tighten the focus of In the Red and Brown Water, they’ll have a theatrical gem of a trilogy. As they now play, each show has moments of engaging theatre. Tarell Alvin McCraney is an emerging playwright with a refreshing take on storytelling His plays are enticing."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended
"...The plays are directed by Tina Landau in the Upstairs Theater at Steppenwolf on an almost bare stage, with minimal although well designed lighting by Scott Zielinski and some striking music by Zane Mark. Landau's cast shares their joy and energy in the exploration into stories dealing with love, sexuality, coming of age and search for truth and self worth as written by McCraney. McCraney's style is a bit unusual in that he has the actors speaking what appears to be stage directions. In the beginning, I was uncertain as to what the effect would be for two hours of hearing these asides. After awhile, some of them seemed to add a comic touch in what otherwise may have been a tense moment, and as the plays progresses, I think the audience became used to the stylish touch and may have even become comfortable with this different form of storytelling."
Chicago Theater Beat - Highly Recommended
"...With any show that experiments as bravely as The Brother/Sister Plays, there is bound to be a few stumbling blocks. The plays are littered with narrative takes to the audience (Ogun will say, “Ogun smiles,” and then he will smile), which create some fantastic moments but also sometimes feel a little overused. Marcus could also use about 15 minutes cut off, and the overall storyline can become convoluted. The theatrical dividends are well worth the occasional hiccup, though. The Brother/Sister Plays make it clear that McCraney will no doubt become an important dramatic voice for our generation."
