Chicago Tribune - Not Recommended
"...The script, though, is episodic and not clever enough to sustain itself, offering little more than a constant elbow to the ribs. I wish director Vance Smith (who has miscast this thing with the exception of Steve Schine, who grounds his thuggish scam artist in a reality that otherwise does not exist) had tempered that a bit. Instead, it is a souffle that falls in on itself, pitched so broadly — even the blocking is strangely amiss — as to have no real comedic style or point of view at all."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Stage Left artistic director Vance Smith's production joyfully tackles the subjects of masculinity and guns (those most masculine-looking members of society) with a dynamo cast, a soundtrack including the Stones and orchestrated Lady Gaga, and blood, sooo much blood. In the end (spoiler alert!) all the hypermachismo characters die, leaving just an imbecilic botanist as the symbol of a new era. Oh fate most fitting."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...All this provides plenty of chortles, but director Vance Smith and his cast, led by Brian Plocharczyk as the ambivalent Lucidus, aren't about to let us hide behind the looney-tunes antics, but instead play their archetypes with deadpan solemnity to ensure that the lessons of who embraces violence, who profits therefrom, and who rejects it, are not lost on us. To paraphrase from the period, if this be cowardice, gentlemen, make the most of it."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...It's a fairly clever setup, and Jones's script is riddled with amusingly out-of-place one-liners (as when Lucidus's dad spits disgustedly, "Your veins are filled with little girl baby urine!") and some adroit ideas, such as the running joke that the letters of courtship between Lucidus and the comely Isabelle Dupree (a forcefully winning Kate Black-Spence) are actually being written by both parties' fathers."
Stage and Cinema - Somewhat Recommended
"...Happily, rich caricatures abound, including Eric Leonard as assorted imbeciles and rascals and Robert McLean as, among other Hogarthian rogues and popinjays, a deadpan Jeeves worthy of Nathaniel’s twit of a Bertie Wooster. Still, despite deft comic turns, bursting blood bags, and Aly Renee Amidei’s cruelly clever costumes, The Coward remains a one-trick pony, a promising running joke that grew from a clever sketch to a bloated broadside."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...Besides Plocharcyzk’s honest performance, Stephen Walker’s dominant father, Steve Schine’s delightful scoundrel and Robert McLean’s work as four characters including a Jeeves-like butler were particularly noteworthy. This is a fun period piece that reeks of satire with clever staging garnering laughs as it ridicules the vain concept of honor through violence as a measure of one’s worth. The Coward is an old-fashion period comedy that is pure fun."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...And indeed, it’s Jones’ lively writing and scintillating dialogue that is the real star here. Red Orchid’s staging of Jones’ surreally hilarious “Trevor” was one of 2013’s best productions, and though “The Coward” is not nearly as bizarre (then again, not many plays can match a production centered around a demented, star-stricken chimpanzee), it’s satire and irreverence are even sharper, and it leaves on yearning for more of Jones’ plays in the hands of such a talented cast and crew."
