Chicago Sun Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...Director Shade Murray has assembled a large, willing cast (including Jocelyn Kelvin, a first-rate robotic secretary). And set designer Dan Stratton has tried to suggest Bauhaus-meets-Constructivist design. But let's agree to leave robots in the recycling bin."
The Wall Street Journal - Highly Recommended
"...What makes "R.U.R." so interesting is that its symbolism is wide open, meaning that it can be interpreted in any number of ways -- as a satire of capitalism, a parable of the law of unintended consequences, even a critique of secular humanism and its discontents. What makes it so theatrically potent is that Capek (pronounced CHAH-puck) wrote it as a comedy that ends in apocalypse -- or, in his words, "A Collective Drama in a Comic Prologue and Three Acts." What makes this production so effective is that Shade Murray, the director, has contrived to give "R.U.R." a contemporary, even postmodern tone without doing violence to its letter or spirit."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...The ensemble works together like, well, clockwork--particularly the quintet of socially maladjusted scientists whose reactions to the lovely Helena (Michaela Petro), a human advocate of robot rights, echo the academics smitten by Barbara Stanwyck in Howard Hawks's Ball of Fire. Miles Polaski's intricate array of sound and music cues (co-designed with Mikhail Fiksel) adds chilling aural texture; Dan Stratton's Constructivist-inspired set and Alison Greaves's period costumes give a deluxe feel to the cramped environment."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...R.U.R. may be creaky for most sci-fi fanatics, but its importance and relevance to the genre are monumental. Strawdog does everyone a favor by producing such a fun and timely reminder."
Chicago Free Press - Somewhat Recommended
"...It’s useless to dwell on the play’s front story when its offstage events, conveyed, alas, through heavy-handed exposition, seem much more interesting. Unfortunately, director Shade Murray is stuck with Capek’s wooden (if not robotic) script, with its caricatures of the robots’ human overseers, like fatuous Helena (Michaela Petro vamping it up), a would-be emancipator of the robots who ends up facilitating the end of our world. A silly first act turns into an overwrought second act. (“When in doubt, shout!” seems to be the principle of the emoting here.) Equally irritating is the intrusive score and sound design by Mikhail Fiskel and Miles Polaski, which stridently suggests that more is at stake than meets the eye or ear. It’s not."
Centerstage - Somewhat Recommended
"...Lacking helpful hints from the set behind them, the actors' actions appear unfocused; their abrupt shifts from one emotional extreme to another are surprising at best and overly scripted at worst. As a result, the story’s key moments are underemphasized; the production unfolds a step ahead of the audience, leaving the meat of the plot untouched."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...from top to bottom, things are a little out of sync. Despite the quality of the performers, no one is quite at the top of his game; an unintended (and somewhat ironic) automatic-pilot quality affects the production, and some haphazard blocking calls attention to the flaws of the high-powered but stilted source, especially in the conceptually sound, dramatically impossible Star Trek–like epilogue. Still, this is engaging, thought-provoking stuff, whose imperfections may constitute its very human heart."
