Angry/Fly at Trap Door Theatre

Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended

"...But don't get me wrong, there is enormous fun to be had here. Mike Mroch's all-white set brings to mind the cabinet-door prankishness of "Laugh-In," and pop songs from Simon and Garfunkel and Led Zeppelin give the show an off-kilter sensibility. The impossibly tall David Steiger delivers a lanky, witty, furrowed-brow of a performance that is at once goofy and enigmatic and you can't take your eyes off of him. He is well-matched with Tiffany Bedwell as his wife, who wears a perpetually bright, perky, Teflon smile — until she doesn't. It's a gas watching them, along with the grand comedy of Casey Chapman's nose-picker of a little boy. But the show lacks the clarity and intellectual rigor that makes absurdism meaningful."

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...Kate Hendrickson's staging is so striking, Mikey Moran's sound design so rich, and the performances so charismatic—even seductive—that I would've been transfixed under any circumstances. Antonio Brunetti and Casey Chapman are particularly astonishing as the winged tramp and a child. And just incidentally, a bout of slapstick paint-splattering goes further than any Clement Greenberg essay in evoking the cultural rage and despair underpinning Jackson Pollack's art."

Chicago Stage Review - Highly Recommended

"...Trap Door Theatre brings an evangelical devotion to realizing the extreme phantasms of their chosen scripts and they do it more earnestly and authentically than the most devout religious zealots. Instead of dictating our morality though, they tear it apart to reveal the very hypocrisies and dangers of our comfortable “auto-pilot” existence. We become the proselytes of their deranged doctrine and it is an insane conversion devoutly to be wished. ANGER/FLY is yet another beguiling example of this mission of madness that should not be missed!"

Time Out Chicago - Recommended

"...Mimicking absurdist playwright Ionesco’s deliberate, playful sense of alienation, director Kate Hendrickson stylizes Margraff’s adaptation with video installations, bubble blowers, heightened expressionist gestures, pop music and a candy-colored kaleidoscope orgy, the result being as comprehensible as that all sounds. Hendrickson’s excellent cast manages the dark comedy and helps clarify the sometimes overwrought ideas, making the frequently overstuffed head-scratchers entertaining, if not always convincing."

Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended

"...Perhaps what is most incredible about this show is that the remarkably talented cast and crew donate their both talent and their time. Any profits they get are not from ticket sales, but from additional audience donations. The proceeds from the bar for the night go to fund European tours for Trap Door Theatre’s work. Taking on an “art-for-the-sake-of-art” for art’s sake philosophy, this literal hole-in-the-wall theatre (you have to walk through the kitchen of a restaurant to get there) is delivering a stunning, avant-garde production, and asking for little in return. Everyone at this theatre seems to have an immense love for what they are doing, and this passion is channeled into an incredible, multifaceted theatrical experience. Whether you like Theatre of the Absurd or not, Trap Door Theatre’s world premiere of Anger/Fly is worth supporting, worth seeing, and is truly an inventive, unparalleled work of art."