Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended

"...The best moment of Hubris Productions' staging of "Butley" is also its first. A college professor flings open the door of his office, where he pauses for a moment, gathering strength, a briefcase in one hand, cup of coffee in the other, his hung-over countenance punctuated by a cigarette. This, you think, will be fun. And for a time, it is. Simon Gray's 1971 play — set at an unnamed university in England — takes a fine-tooth comb to the tangles of academic grudges and interpersonal betrayals experienced by one Ben Butley (Jacob Christopher Green), a floridly miserable lecturer with a barbed put-down always at the ready."
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Chicago Reader - Recommended

"...The script's references to English literature (Butley is a T.S. Eliot specialist) and the British class system may elude some viewers, and it's hard to work up much sympathy for the overbearing title character. Still, Gray's waspishly witty dialogue makes for an entertaining crack-up."
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Windy City Times - Recommended

"...Faced with playing the most charmless hero since Richard III, Jacob Christopher Green gives it his all, spewing forth vitriol and doggerel (Eliot buffs may recognize some of both) with an calculation designed to assure us that his infantile actions are carefully premeditated. What distinguishes protagonists from mannequins, however, is their ability to make choices. The brief moment when our splenetic man-child rejects an opportunity to continue in his selfish misanthropy may seem small redemption for a pilgrim who strayed so far from the right path, but it opens the door—if only a tiny bit—to hopes of a change for the better."
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Centerstage - Highly Recommended

"... Simon Gray’s dark, award-winning comedy earned Alan Bates a Tony in 1972 for his electrifying portrayal of the title role. The fast-talking, poetry-quoting Ben Butley is truly a tour de force role for any actor, and Jacob Christopher Green deserves the highest praise, if only for sheer endurance. Long hair cascading, swilling whiskey, the actor both opens and closes the play, rattling nonstop, leaping onto furniture and never leaving the stage except for intermission. Butley’s sarcasm and bitterness mask his pain and desperation to hold onto those dearest to him. But he’s at the mercy of his runaway self-hatred. The character’s eloquence and sharp wit, made more caustic by Green’s precise English dialect (kudos to dialect coach, Sarah Pretz), snowballs ever faster toward the play’s inevitable conclusion. The effect is like watching an unavoidable train wreck."
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