Mascot Reviews

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...But brought to the stage by director Kevlyn Hayes and actor Matt Test, the piece is powerful, darkly funny-and ultimately sad. Test plays a computer repair guy who's allowed his inner demons to rule, and ruin, his life. Estranged from his son and forbidden by court order to be near his wife-who goes to all the football games-he's drawn inexorably to repeated self-destructive encounters with them, and with the authorities. Hayes's clever, graceful staging finds myriad onstage metaphors for the protagonist's disintegrating mental state."

Centerstage - Somewhat Recommended

"...The greatest compliment I can pay to “Mascot” playwright Chris Bower is that his show constantly had me thinking, “This reminds me of The Simpsons.” But it’s not really the Simpsons themselves that “Mascot” brings to mind so much as Springfield, the half-baked burg in which they live. Bowers is able to create a portrait of the fictional town of Mt. Sudden that walks very fine line between identifiable and absurd. It’s real enough to recognize, but unreal enough to laugh at. This is a very difficult task, especially given the play’s short one-hour run time, but Bower achieves it all the same."

ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended

"...For as demonstrated by the recent Boston bombings and the less recent massacre at Sandy Hook, the helplessly detached, atomized and morally wayward consciousness Bowers seems so interested in is no longer a fringe anomaly in today's America. In fact, it appears to be spreading at an alarming rate. In this respect, Mascot raises awareness of something deeply insidious already lurking in the American subconscious. And for this reason, as I said, it broaches all limits of acceptable "consumer" taste. For better or for worse."