Summer People
The Gift Theatre

Chicago Tribune- Somewhat Recommended

"...Psychological re-creations of battlefield horrors are tricky at the best of times, and the traumatic flashback is particularly fraught with shouted cliches. If you are going to dramatize a soldier’s nightmares, you have to find a way to do it that feels fresher and more dignified than is the case in Connell’s writing and Paul D’Addario’s staging."
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Chris Jones

Time Out Chicago- Somewhat Recommended

"...While Summer People combines foreign policy and domestic drama to less than satisfying effect, the Gift’s production is well acted scene to scene. Intimate moments between Lynda Newton and Danny Ahlfeld as the mother and camp manager ring warm and true, while on the opposite end of the stage we get intriguing flashbacks of soldier Rob Belushi’s frustrated, language-hampered interactions with a young Iraqi woman (Minita Gandhi). But director D’Addario can’t seem to illuminate the intent of Connell’s awkward juxtaposition."
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Kris Vire

Chicago Reader- Somewhat Recommended

"...The most powerful impression created by this new play from Gift Theatre ensemble member Jenny Connell is that it probably would've worked better as a novel. The really interesting things that happen to Connell's stressed-out characters--a troubled GI newly returned from Iraq, a campground manager with a purple heart and PTSD from Vietnam, a bitter divorced mom and her two daughters--occur inside their heads, into which Connell's script never manages to reach effectively."
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Tony Adler

Windy City Times- Somewhat Recommended

"...Summer People could have emerged a sweetly tragic domestic romance not unlike the Harlequins that comprise the older girl's reading matter. What undermines even the superficial credibility necessary to the genre, however, is the tidiness with which the emotions, and subsequent actions, of its stereotypical personnel bend to narrative expedience. By the time Connell's "shocking" ending brings the lock-step plot to an abrupt halt ( not one extra minute is expended on its consequences ) , we have not only seen it coming long before, but grown downright impatient waiting for it—this, in a show running only slightly over one hour."
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Mary Shen Barnidge

Chicago Theater Blog- Recommended

"...At 70 minutes, without intermission, Summer People feels like two-thirds of a play – short and somewhat tenuous. What there is, is worth seeing, but I’d have liked to have seen the rest. A longer, two-act script might have overcome the heavy-handed forewarning of the first scene, and conveyed something more than the obvious message that war makes people crazy."
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Leah A. Zeldes

Steadstyle Chicago- Somewhat Recommended

"...Since its inception, I have enjoyed my visits to the intimate little storefront theater located in Jefferson Park known as The Gift. Their stories are always very honest and sincere and told in a simplistic manner, allowing their audience to get a feel for the message they are delivering. Their current production, making its world premiere is "Summer People," written by one of their own members, Jenny Connell. This particular piece of work, roughly 70 minutes long, has several intertwining stories, but for some reason I left the theater feeling as I was not given a complete story. Perhaps there is more, or should be more to make the story complete."
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Al Bresloff