Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Truax, one of the most visually, well, visionary directors in Chicago's storefront scene, has upped the ante for this seldom-produced piece from 1977 even more by staging it as a chamber opera. Jonathan Guillen's spare but insinuating score serves as a threnody for the lost souls of Hamlet, Ophelia, and Gertrude — the first of whom is played by three actors and the second by two. And in the process, it also becomes a dirge for the 20th century's age of chaos and irreparable ruptures."
Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"...Muller’s 90-minute work, sinuously staged by director Max Truax and choreographer Lyndsay Rose Kane, and near-operatic thanks to an exquisite new score by Chicago-based Jonathan Guillen, makes the assumption that audiences are familiar enough with Shakespeare’s play to move into postmodern mode. That means the original text (translated by Carl Weber) is fragmented, sampled, distilled, modernized and reimagined to the point where it retains the crucial original elements (Hamlet’s near-incestuous relationship with his mother, who may have conspired to kill his father), his tense interplay with his abused girlfriend Ophelia and his fractured sense of self."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...Taking up the challenge, Trap Door Theatre has given us Hamlet as a kind of neurasthenic opera, featuring one Gertrude, two Ophelias, and a trio of Hamlets who twitter at one another in their sexually charged ennui. Much of it is tedious or--as when Gertrude and Hamlet are dealing with their incest issues--obvious. But every once in a while Max Truax's production taps into archetype and an ugly beauty. Just be patient."
Centerstage - Highly Recommended
"...Under Max Truax’s direction, the company has broken down and rearranged Müller’s blocky text into a fragmented dialogue shared among three Hamlets, a Gertrude, and a pair of Ophelias. Individual lines and patterns of call-and-response are repeated; certain fragmentary phrases resurface again and again, like talismans amid the exhilarating confusion of words. All the lines are sung to an eerily beautiful score by Jonathan Guillen. The show is visually thrilling as well: slow, dramatic choreography (by Lyndsay Rose Kane, who also plays Gertrude) plays out against an austere but versatile set. At one point, the Ophelias sing from behind the translucent sheets of industrial plastic curtain behind the playing area, bathed in smoky blue and green light. The image suggests simultaneously Ophelia’s river and a gas chamber. The effect is both gorgeous, and chilling."
Chicago Stage Review - Highly Recommended
"...No one calculates chaos and masters madness with more purpose, conviction, theatrical artistry and artistic integrity than Trap Door Theatre. HAMLETMACHINE dares its audience to run screaming from conventional thought and dive into the flames of an inferno of insanity. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, for if you take that dare you will emerge stunned, altered and wondrously ravaged."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...
Working with composer Jonathan Guillen, the young director—whose strong recent credits include Brecht’s In the Jungle of Cities for Ka-Tet and Strindberg’s Ghost Sonata at Oracle—has turned Hamletmachine into thoroughly compelling, jagged-edged chamber opera. The director eschews most of the architectural trappings of Müller’s script, instead exploding the author’s words into a libretto for three Hamlets, two Ophelias and one Gertrude, with Guillen’s smartly contrapuntal score filling in the flourishes. As a current riff on a well-known text, this Hamletmachine rivals Black Swan for edgy psychodrama; unlike Aronofsky, though, Truax offers substance to match his style."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...I have always admired theatre groups with the chutzpah to stretch the boundaries of theatre. No troupe in Chicago does a finer job covering new territory than Trap Door Theatre. Max Truax’s Hamletmachine is master piece of experimentalist theatre that will boggle your mind. For those adventurous souls who cherish stylist and artsy work, the Hamletmachine will satisfy your creative cravings."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Somewhat Recommended
"...Some parts of the rather short evening work very well, and some never come together enough to gel. For as much singing as there is throughout, a couple of the voices (particularly Hamlets 1 and 2) are very weak. And with little story to hang your hat on, elements like the quality of singing just have to be there. When they are, it's a surreal, fascinating experience. When they aren't, it's a boring mess."
Chicago Theater Beat - Somewhat Recommended
"...Trap Door’s failing, noble as it may be, is that the production is overburdened conceptually. Müller’s script is already a puzzle. In production, the confusion should be unraveled somewhat, not wound tighter. Traux’s vision of the play may be brilliant, but it doesn’t read."
