Chicago Tribune
- Somewhat Recommended
"...The trouble with “Oleanna” is that Cox plays him as a neurotic from the start, and thus he doesn’t really have anywhere to go. He lacks that normative quality crucial to the play’s power structure. Lowrance shows spectacular range as Carol — she morphs from nerd to tyrant right before our eyes — but with Cox’s professor, you get the sense that there is no way she would have been the first student to run afoul of this weirdo. That’s a problem."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Note to everyone else: Get yourself over to the American Theater Company, where Rick Snyder (the veteran Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble member who has emerged as a director of extraordinary talent and profound insight), and his three phenomenal actors (Nicole Lowrance, Darrell W. Cox and Lance Baker), are battling their way through the most bitter, bruising, revelatory and wholly accomplished productions ever given these brash pursuit-of-power dramas. In addition, try to see these 75-minute works on the same day (they are running in rotating repertory), so that both their intriguingly complementary content, and the actors' brilliance, come fully into focus."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...If you're at all interested in how to think about Mamet and his plays, see both entries in the ATC rep. Each has its fascinations, each gets kick-ass treatment under Rick Snyder's direction—and, thanks to a nice bit of thematic curating, the two together provide a strong sense of the playwright's talents and preoccupations."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"... In Oleanna, he mops out his hair, adds glasses and changes posture to create the younger, motor-mouthed prof who thinks his talk is important. Lowrance is the pretty Hollywood secretary and the younger student. She's the antagonist in both works, convincingly playing "dumb" in the early scenes, then reveling in the power exchange. Her Oleanna turn as a cruel, young fascist is scary. The reliably riveting Lance Baker plays the junior producer in Speed-the-Plow in a juicy take-charge performance as an ass-kisser sweating bullets."
Copley News Service
- Highly Recommended
"...All the loose ends and improbabilities are effectively camouflaged by the white-hot performances by Darrell Cox as John and Nicole Lowrance as Carol. And director Rick Snyder keeps the emotional temperature at the boil with his fierce pacing. The audience barely has a chance to breath as the action escalates in verbal and finally physical violence. Only after the play ends can spectators reflect that Mamet’s screed doesn’t hold dramatic water."
Chicago Stage Review
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Still, this is a solid enough rendering of Mamet’s script to prove engaging. The explosive physical altercation towards the end of the play is genuinely frightening and one of the best examples of staged violence seen on a Chicago stage. American Theater Company’s Oleanna fails to fully connect all of the dots but nonetheless manages to create a thought-provoking picture of this twisted treatise on sexual harassment."
Time Out Chicago
- Not Recommended
"...
Oleanna (1992) finds Mamet aiming at a play of ideas, which might have been less disastrous if the ideas were less moronic. This study of campus sexual harassment raises only two real questions: Which of his characters does the author hate more—the castrating bitch feminist (Lowrance) or the whiny liberal professor who can’t put her in her place (Cox)? And more importantly, why should we care? The actors strive mightily, but there’s no great answer available."
ChicagoCritic
- Highly Recommended
"...As the plot emerges, we see how vicious Carol can be with her half-truths that will destroy John’s life. The explosive last few minutes will shock you to your core. Darrell W. Cox is amazing as he moves from cocky pompous professor to an enraged soul. See this 65 minute on act."
Chicago Theater Beat
- Highly Recommended
"...Together, Lowrance and Cox are dynamite. They squawk rhetoric at each other, grabbing for the reins of the relationship. Snyder’s staging navigates the text wonderfully and sculpts the tension. For example, the famous brutal assault in Act Three springs like a trap and knocks the audience’s wind out. As it turns out, John is actually a terrific teacher because Carol becomes just as power-hungry as him."
