Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...The main problem with Contey's new production of O'Neill's "Beyond the Horizon," the 1920 drama wherein two brothers make fraught and flawed life choices after the same woman comes between them, is that it feels like a production in search of an overarching idea."
Chicago Sun Times - Somewhat Recommended
"... Little goes as planned in the following years. The farm, as well as the marriage between Robert and Ruth, quickly deteriorate, with Ruth’s crippled and self-involved mother (a delicious turn by Kate Harris), a constant irritant. Andrew becomes a prosperous businessman, at least initially. But in the end, everything the brothers touch seems to come up empty."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...The Mayo family owns a hardscrabble New England farm, and with every farm comes the question that sons Rob and Andy face: whether to stick around or strike out for a better life. It's director Lou Contey's bad luck that paterfamilias James Mayo dies after only one scene, since Brian Parry plays the role with emotional depth and authenticity that's at a premium elsewhere in the cast."
Centerstage - Somewhat Recommended
"... Wehrman and Swift are ill suited and awkward in their roles and neither one can handle the O’Neill’s frequent dips into the impressionistic deep end. Shain fares much better than her male counterparts, but can’t quite connect the haphazard (and sexist) dots that O’Neill has laid out for her. Ruth’s transformation into a succubus is actually kind of offensive and the place where the play most shows its age. Well, besides the consumption."
Time Out Chicago - Not Recommended
"...Missing is the four-time Pulitzer winner’s nuanced sense of tragic fatalism. The trouble inherent in Beyond the Horizon is that both the root of its family’s unhappiness and its underlying message are obvious: Turning down your dreams in favor of boning your brother’s girlfriend is a bad idea. Matters aren’t helped here by Lou Contey’s anemic, breathy, all-around miscast production. The family never congeals, and years elapse with no character development or so much as change in set dressing; equally static are the show’s stakes."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...Beyond the Horizon still contains messages that still resonate today. Eclipse Theatre continues to shine as one of the finest no-Equity Chicago theatre companies. Their “Year of Eugen O’Neill” is off to a fine start. Catch this early O’Neill gem."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended
"...That’s the fulcrum that moves Lou Contey’s earnest and persuasive Eclipse Theatre Company production. Wehrman and Swift create enough of a psychological gap between the brothers to let O’Neill’s all-showing dialogue do the rest. Though Emily Shain plays Ruth young enough to not know her desires and innocent enough not to reckon with the consequences, Ruth clearly remains the serpent in O’Neill’s garden."
Chicago Theater Beat - Somewhat Recommended
"...Beyond the Horizon awarded O’Neill the big prize for his first published work. Still, it’s a play infrequently produced. (Perhaps O’Neill hesitated to retool and tighten his Pulitzer Prize winner.) It henceforth has become a challenge for theatre companies to get this play off the shelf and onto the stage. Eclipse Theatre goes after their dream, Beyond the Horizon. Their quest results in some beauty but definitely some wandering on and on."