Salt of the Earth
Ka-Tet Theatre Company at
City Lit Theater
Chicago Reader- Recommended
"...The material is familiar, but the bittersweet script feels true and lived-in. It's complemented by painfully honest performances from a fine eight-person ensemble under Thomas Murray's direction."
Read Full Review
Albert Williams
NewCity Chicago- Recommended
"... As powerfully as Godber presents the raw emotions involved, the play suffers from a certain schizophrenia regarding the tragedies it wishes to depict. The first major event of the play leaves one of the central characters dead, an event which comes to define the others’ lives but which is left largely unanalyzed for most of the play. Furthermore, in the background of the family drama lies the looming reality of mine closures; implied to be the central theme, this inexorable dismantling of an entire way of life is in fact only glanced at. Those looking for a tight plot with well-defined goals should look elsewhere, but it’s still a powerful and wrenchingly honest portrayal of the strain that progress and change put on those whom we call the “salt of the earth.”"
Read Full Review
Rob Underwood
Centerstage- Recommended
"... Politics and history are never far from the play as it moves the industrial town from postwar prosperity to Thatcherite decline, but Godber’s smart and sympathetic writing never loses the fact that political drama is meaningless unless it’s fundamentally about people."
Read Full Review
Rory Leahy
Stage and Cinema- Recommended
"... Playwright John Godber grew up in a Yorkshire mining town before going off to college to become a writer. It gives Salt of the Earth, which follows 40 years in the life of family in a mining town, an autobiographical quality, strengthened by the fact that the sections featuring a real surrogate for the playwright are far more vibrant than the rest of the show."
Read Full Review
Samantha Nelson
ChicagoCritic- Not Recommended
"... I believe that Salt of the Earth could be a heartwarming saga but as now played, the garbled, too-fast speech patterns and the severe tone shifts keep it from being enjoyable. Kevin Lambert and Kathryn Bartholomew were particularly excellent. If they would drop the heavy accents and slow down their speech to articulate and enunciate the dialogue, then Salt of the Earth could be a worthy production. Ka-Tet Theatre Company usually does better work so we can forgive them for this show."
Read Full Review
Tom Williams
Chicago Stage Standard- Recommended
"...In the final scene when Paul comes home for his dad’s 60th birthday, bringing with him his new wife Cherry (Stevie Chaddock Lambert), the family is finally together—but only physically. But then it’s hard to gauge how much Paul has lost. Godber never establishes how much love this family shared to begin with. Murray’s superb cast work overtime to connect these fragmentary vignettes and to make us care. But the play’s whole is never greater than its parts. Best to savor it for the acting (if you can get past the accents)."
Lawrence Bommer
|
