Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"... The first national tour of this show arrived in Chicago on Tuesday night. Its very young cast is, vocally speaking, a notch below the original Broadway cast, or so it felt opening night, when it also took a while to tune the room. But this is a top-flight Equity tour, with a modified but wholly workable design, nicely stacked with several members of that fine original company. There is a formidable central performance here from Joshua Kobak, who plays St. Jimmy, and who is both a vulnerable actor and a beautiful singer to whom one could listen all night. Van Hughes (who played this role toward the end of the Broadway run) is a richly veined Johnny, once he fires up from his nihilism, and Scott J. Campbell's Tunny has notable magnitude, as he should, given all that he undergoes. There's also a notably intense performance from Gabrielle McClinton, who, with the help of the movement forged by the brilliant choreographer Steven Hoggett, flings her body into the partying role of Whatsername with just the right kind of desperation — the sort that you know will be burned out before the disc has fully spun."
Chicago Sun Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...But frankly, it’s hard to care about the plight of the three disaffected, willfully moronic, obscenity-spewing, working-class guys who are lost in post-high school malaise here — especially Johnny (Van Hughes), the self-declared loser at the center of the action who moves from suburbia to the big city, goes to the devil in the form of an alter ego, St. Jimmy (Joshua Kobak) and gets himself and his rebel girlfriend (Gabrielle McClinton) hooked on heroin."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...As entertainment, Idiot is as close to a rock concert as you’re likely to see in the ornate Oriental, in both production elements and attitude. This isn’t the show for theatergoers who aren’t into blaring guitars and strobe lights. But you wish Mayer and Armstrong had written a little more book. Though the narrative they thread together with almost no dialogue is impressive, some characters get short shrift. While jittery Hughes has a solid arc of finding and losing love with Whatsername (a strong Gabrielle McClinton) through his dependence on smack dealer St. Jimmy (Joshua Kobak), the talented Epstein spends most of the show trapped on a couch. That’s something worth protesting."
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...I must do my homework before seeing another punk rock infused musical. The deafing sound was so loud that I was worried that my pacemaker might go off! I guess punk rock necessitates that the volume be set into the stratosphere? Add the slurred Broadway pop singing style and I could only understand a word here and there. Was there a story?"
Chicago Stage and Screen - Not Recommended
"... As a critic and fellow audience member I simply cannot find reason enough to justify purchasing “American Idiot” tickets with your hard earned money when you could get more out of listening to the album at home. I imagine the target audience for this chaos would have to be die-hard Green Day fans, but I feel even they would agree they’d rather just see Green Day themselves instead, if they’re even touring still. But rejoice! If you absolutely love extremely loud musicals with abhorrent plots and under rehearsed material and constant use of strobe lights that could make you go blind, then look no further than “American Horror Story”, I mean “American Idiot”."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...Green Day’s lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong teamed up with Michael Mayer to create one long, poignant music video. Armstrong and Mayer organize Green Day’s songs into a holistic story. The results are more rock concert than musical but it reaches a younger generation the way Rodgers & Hammerstein can’t. The lyrics are gritty and real. It’s about actual growing pains. ‘Tell me I won’t feel a thing so give me Novocain.‘ As a 40something, I remember my youth rebellion. My friends and I taking on the establishment. But this younger generation rage is more intense. Their torment not easily fixed. ‘Too much, too soon, sucks to be you.‘ Green Day songs are these head nodding, fist punching, mind sliding melodies of liberation. The talented cast sings like zealots at war. The music is cranked up full-volume passion!"
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...My generation is not up on the music of Green Day, but in discussing the show with my daughter, she immediately told me that this is “great music” with meaning! The younger members of the audience tonight knew the music and the words and in thinking about the over-all production, I do see that over time, like a fine wine, audiences may become almost “cult-like ” ( as they are with “Rent” and others of that ilk) I can see that many young people are confused as to who they are and what lies ahead. Will their future be bright? Will our economy turn around? In this story, each had a set back. Being young with a baby- going to a war that you don’t understand- trying to make it in a business that is difficult and filled drugs and sex! What kind of chance did they have?"