Chicago Tribune - Recommended

"...One is not bored here for a second — if you have a young person studying this play, you should take 'em to this and expand their mind on how a great story can inspire artists across the years — and there are a lot of clever staging ideas, such as the moment when that tea we've all been drinking takes on a different role, or when a single blade, hung in the air, stands in for a body, or when Paris, played by a woman, starts prattling on about how disobedience and the feminine do not belong together. He looks quite the fool."
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Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended

"...The audience is led into a small, green gingham tent where a cast of four acts out the whole thing on a shag rug. The production's peculiar combination of immediacy and irreverence seems at times to satirize teenage love (so intense, so careless). At other times, it feels like Graney is riffing and remixing for the sake of riffing and remixing. Still, the last scene is wrenching, thanks in large part to Walter Briggs's ferocious Romeo."
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NewCity Chicago - Recommended

"...The story of the star-crossed lovers, despite the play’s abbreviated length, mix-matched dialogue and skeleton cast, is told with astonishing breadth and clarity. The tone, alternately playful and horrific, shifts with unforced adjustments in lighting, position and music, often involving a snakey lamp or a nifty retro record player. The music is a cool blend of Leonard Cohen, Fun and frolicking classical fare. Graney’s script acknowledges the play’s theatricality often, with some of the jokes landing better than others, but the device, if nothing else, shatters the audience’s preconceptions."
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Windy City Times - Highly Recommended

"...For 80 minutes, this quartet proceeds to enact the timeless tragedy at warp speed, dancing between their respective scripts with occasional forays into modern vernacular ("You're really creepy, boy!") while melding multiple characters into single functioning personalities. "Romeo's sidekick," for example, combines parts of Benvolio, Friar Lawrence and the Nurse. This inevitably leads to a certain amount of self-referential humor, as when a dying Mercutio accuses his assassin of "stealing my life and my lines!""
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Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended

"...But as Romeo Juliet progresses, Graney’s use of the multiple texts (Shakespeare’s, Romani’s and his own) provides increasingly surprising resonances, particularly in a gut-wrenching repurposing of Shakespeare’s morning-after scene. The four actors draw attention to the discoveries they and their director have made without becoming ostentatious. At this tragedy’s climax, the pitiful sight I thought I knew well brought new tears to my eyes."
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Chicago Now - Recommended

"...Graney achieves a full-bodied experience in ROMEO JULIET. You can touch, smell, taste, and hear it. But if you want to see it, move quick because seating is limited and tickets will go fast."
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