Prowess Reviews
Chicago Tribune- Somewhat Recommended
"...Nobody else in Chicago writes anything like the massively talented Holter, whose poetic language often emerges in thrilling torrents. But he's hardly a formalist — rather, he's a young artist skating through the city he loves, and his emotion and hope for the future cascades all over "Prowess," which is at times very beautiful even as its themes reveal the ugliness of life when safety is elusive. On the other hand, Holter is hardly a utopian; he doesn't want to let the city's financial leaders and elected politicians, nor its lethargic ordinary citizens, wriggle away or absolve themselves from blame. These days Holter has a real and mostly youthful following. He is becoming a genuine artistic leader and a thought leader. On Facebook and in the theater people now hang on his words, which do not let them down."
Chicago Sun Times- Recommended
"...Lyons has directed “Prowess” with an emotional and physical fury that fully lives up to the play’s title, and her designers (a terrific set by the ever-brilliant Courtney O’Neill is animated by superb, fear-inducing lighting and projections by Michael Stanfill, and sound by Matt Chapman) help drive the show by conjuring a summertime urban heat."
Chicago Reader- Recommended
"...The results, however, suggest anything but feel-good underdogism. Prowess falters at the end, when it comes time to pitch the moral(s) of the story. Yet even then we've got Holter's uncanny language, bypassing even conventional distinctions among characters to turn Prowess into something more like a harsh, funny, wised-up, yearning, breakneck utterance than a play. Sinewed with strong performances, Marti Lyons's staging sprints right along with it."
Windy City Times- Highly Recommended
"...In Prowess, Holter cleverly taps into the cultural zeitgeist of comic-book superheroes while also bemoaning the very real and upsetting problem of senseless violence in Chicago. In this vastly entertaining stage fantasy rooted in unsettling reality, Prowess raises a lot of tough questions for its characters to wrestle with, but vitally for Chicago audiences, too."
Talkin Broadway- Highly Recommended
"...It may seem unlikely to the reader that all this stuff can be thrown together and still work, but it does. Audiences should resist the temptation to view Prowess through a lens of any one genre. This is something different, combining heightened reality if not outright fantasy. Holter throws us right into the middle of an existential problem we would much rather avoid facing. He asks one final time before we leave the theater-what are we going to do about urban violence?"
Time Out Chicago- Highly Recommended
"...Whereas modern superhero movies are often criticized for the consequence-free “destruction porn” of city-razing climactic battles, Prowess zooms in to examine the damage inflicted on the psyches of these street-level non-supers by fighting violence with violence. Under Marti Lyons’s sharp direction, Holter’s work is engaging and exhilarating, with huge aesthetic assists from Michael Stanfill’s cracking projections and Ryan Bourque’s kickass fight choreography. Scene-to-scene, the script can veer slightly out-of-focus, with all four characters frequently speaking in Holter’s characteristic verbose tirades. But as in some of his other best works (Hit the Wall, Exit Strategy), Prowess uses disarming irreverence and a little bit of fantasy to get us thinking freshly about real-world heroic themes."
Chicago Stage and Screen- Recommended
"...This show, this powerful world premiere production of Ike Holter’s Prowess at Jackalope Theatre, grips from the beginning with a brutal reminder of how complacent and how normal we as Chicago residents act around and about violence. Maybe complacent isn’t the right word. No one is OK with the violence that happens in this city. It’s so ingrained in our psyches, though, that all Holter has to do is show a young woman interested in self-defense and then have someone recognize her as “the girl from the red line train” and it drops like a rock into the pit of every Chicagoan stomach and stays there."
The Fourth Walsh- Highly Recommended
"...Although the ending seemed to drag a bit, I really enjoyed PROWESS. Throughout the show, I kept comparing it to "Daredevil" meets "The Incredibles." It has everything I look for in a thrilling summer blockbuster; adrenaline-rushing moves, soul-searching confessions and a flirty, steamy romance."
NewCity Chicago- Highly Recommended
"...Taking place exclusively on the South Side, Holter is not afraid to acknowledge the insidious "not my Chicago" attitude that further partitions our already deeply divided city. If you're fortunate enough to live between Rogers Park and Bronzeville (and east of Humboldt Park), it is entirely possible to mean well, do little and feel pretty okay about it. Yet Holter's conclusions about what exactly any of us are supposed to do about the problems plaguing our city are, if not fuzzy, at least purposefully inconclusive."