Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...All of the performances are solid — Nina O'Keefe is wholly annoying as the climbing Nina, obsessed with networking and, therefore, willing to sleep with the odious Trig (the aptly irritating Cody Proctor), success being the only true turn-on in her strivey little universe."
Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"...“Bird,” which has become a genuine hit for Sideshow, is true to Chekhov by being thoroughly “modern” in its own way — with an intensely self-aware, punch-through-the-fourth-wall, alienation-and-expletive-infused dramedy style clearly targeted at the millennial generation. It is Chekhov made “relevant” in the most literal terms. But in a crazy way it works."
Daily Herald - Highly Recommended
"...Bedeviled by "stupid dreams of perfect love," Posner's characters express their all-consuming desires -- for love, fame, attention, respect, kindness, a hug, a bottomless bowl of ice cream -- in the somewhat contrived yet effective conclusion to Act 1."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...But no matter the number of topical rants or F-bombs—far fewer than Mamet, actually—the heartbreaking hollowness of life’s perpetual disappointments echoes as deeply here as it did in 1896. Jonathan L. Green directs this commercial remount of Sideshow Theatre’s 2014 hit with grace, agility, and exacting impudence. Perhaps fittingly, neither Posner nor Green delivers a satisfying conclusion—another of life's disappointments."
Gapers Block - Highly Recommended
"...SFB is a delightful two hours of smart theater that you'll enjoy even if you haven't seen The Seagull more times than you can count. The playbill provides a brief summary of the original, "in case you forgot." Director Jonathan L. Green, who also directed Sideshow's 2014 version, creates a minimalist production that uses original and contemporary pop music and breaks the fourth wall at will to talk with the audience."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...The opening night audience was the youngest I have ever seen fill a theatre with a couple hundred seats. Granted, a lot of them I recognized as industry members, but one of Posner’s play’s greatest strengths is how humorously, but urgently, it voices the concerns I heard repeated constantly in my theatre department and see my peers expressing in my newsfeeds. Con has an amazing rant about how theatre has desperately flailed at retaining a shrinking niche audience on ever decreasing budgets that was received with many knowing chuckles. (For what it’s worth, arts management is a rather ghettoized skill in most training programs.) Other characters mull over how much pain and fear they feel due to loving each other, while the seemingly most well-adjusted of them complain of feeling nothing at all."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Sometimes, it would be a relief to hear Chekov's character's talk this way, but Posner's dialogue, as his title suggests, is not always that lyrical: it can be bitingly funny, excessively crude and offensive, heavily meta-theatrical, but like the character's pathologies, it is never subtle or polite. Nonetheless, he is able to stick closely to the outline of Chekov's plot and force us to look at the character's suffering in a new light while still making the whole thing very and overtly funny."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Highly Recommended
"...“Bird” will be an especially galvanizing experience for playgoers who claim to be turned off by Chekhov’s mopey characters kvetching their lives away on distant Russian country houses and estates. The characters in “Bird” connect with the audience, and not just because of the non realistic stage devices that enliven the production. We feel the passion (that essential word again) that churns through each character. We can pity and laugh at these men and women because they are “now” people and we can recognize their suffering as real and not distant and stagey."
Splash Magazine - Highly Recommended
"...Unlike at Thanksgiving dinner, in theatre it is rare to have an opportunity to go back for seconds; once a production closes, it goes the way of Ibsen's infamous slammed door and stays closed forever. But with its remounting of last summer's wildly successful production of Stupid F***ing Bird, the Sideshow Theatre Company offers audiences a second chance to engage with this smart, funny, gut-wrenching piece of meta-theatrical brilliance, and it is absolutely a chance worth taking."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...The play is achingly heartfelt and hysterically funny, often simultaneously. Toward the end of the first act, each character is allowed to trump dramatic convention by telling the audience exactly what they want. While most desires are in line with their origin characters-love, admiration, fame, sex-Uncle Sorn (a wonderfully unhurried Norm Woodel) proclaims to want just a hug. "A hug that lasts a month," he adds melancholically. In an ambitious work full of grand gestures and cutting swipes at grand gestures, it is small moments such as these that key us into the profound subtlety of playwright Aaron Posner's adaptation."
