Pop Waits at Neo-Futurists

Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended

"...White and Brennan use the title personas as a way of exploring their own, very complicated identities. It's all fun, games, and a sharp three-piece backup band for a while. Brennan and White are both fine physical artists with great comic timing and an uncommon sweetness. The energy dissipates, though, when the pair turn confessional. As canny as they are about the nature of artifice, as brave as they are in attempting to dispense with it, they come up against a basic fact: suffering without art is just suffering."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended

"...Molly Brennan and Malic White are some of the Chicago theater world's most interesting and compelling performers. Brennan, an Equity member, has graced most of the city's top end stages from Steppenwolf to the Lyric. She covers the Velvet Underground as Lou Reed! Her decision to write original Tom Waits inspired songs when the desired pieces were unavailable in time for the show is not the act of hubris one would think: she is a treasure trove of wild and wide ranging talent and you would watch her read a phone book because she would make it interesting. White, a self-styled gender warrior who uses the pronoun They, is a punk imp who literally throws themself into performance. With intense physicality they range the tiny Neo-Futuristic space breaking the fourth wall."

The Fourth Walsh - Recommended

"...Brennan and White are both utterly confident, captivating performers. Playing off of the gravelly-voiced bluesman persona of Tom Waits, Brennan provides a bit of ballast to the more flighty White who rocks out convincingly in several Iggy Pop classics – namely in a version of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” that totally goes for it and includes a mosh pit, some nudity and a sandwich condiment. (Yes, it’s a bad-ass moment.) Due to a last-minute musical rights snafu with Mr. Waits’ music publisher, Brennan also needed to crank out several original songs to replace the Waits material just days before this production’s opening."

Third Coast Review - Recommended

"...The 90-minute production, partly improv, is a punk rock treat with the excellent band made up of musical director Spencer Meeks, Eliza Carlson and Nick Davio, all multi-instrumentalists. Many instruments of percussion, keyboards and strings are used throughout the show. Most of the music is original, including the opening number, which the crew is creating on a blackboard as the audience arrives. "What rhymes with cow?" shouts one of the musicians. My "Meow!" made it to the blackboard. ("Punk rock unibrow. You're the cat's meow.")"

NewCity Chicago - Recommended

"...While it may not be their aspiration or even their intent, with "Pop Waits" White and Brennan are supplying their audiences with the same kind of empowerment they receive from the musicians they admire. Their message is a good reminder for adults of both the go-along-to-get-along and against-the-grain varieties. Yet I believe it would find its most intense reverberations in teens and I do hope they find a way to include this most sensitive and ingenuous demographic."