The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls at Trap Door Theatre

Chicago Reader - Recommended

"...She’s aided by a cast of mostly Trap Door veterans who sprint through Miroshnik’s intricate, demanding text with hardly a moment’s falter, rendering its opulent ambiguity with eidetic clarity. While the panicked pacing grows wearying in spots, Wiesner magically makes irrationality cogent. You’d think she’d been directing for decades."

Chicago Stage Review - Highly Recommended

"...Director Nicole Wiesner takes a deceptively complex script, full of odd characters and bizarre circumstances, and creates and haunted house of hilarious horrors and super hotties. Perfect for this 'season of the witch,' The Fairy Tale Lives of Russian Girls is a dark and delightful extravaganza where "witches is crazy bitches." "In Russian skazka (fairytales) there is no happily ever after." ... Or is there?"

Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended

"...There’s a lot to sort through here, and as storylines crash into one another, what’s actually going on in the forest can get muddy—but never to a point where it detracts much from the experience. Instead, the blurred-together references to children wandering into the woods, a poisoned apple, domestic violence, prostitution and big, bad bears serve to throw the viewer pleasantly off-balance as the characters stray from the breadcrumb trail to happily ever after."

ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended

"...Miroshnek’s story is a rapidly spinning kaleidoscope of contemporary urban Russia. We go everywhere from Baba Yaga’s apartment, to the dancefloor in a hip bar, to the oligarch’s palace. Consequently, Aaron O’Neill’s set design is flexible and vague, except for a large brick oven. We rely more on Richard Norwood’s lighting and Danny Rockett’s original music to establish location, along with Nicole Wiesner’s directing, which uses up almost every inch of Trap Door’s theatre."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Somewhat Recommended

"...Following the lead of season opener The Universal Wolf, Trap Door Theatre returns with The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, a leather and lace vision of Russian folklore with a modern twist. Meg Miroshnik's violently eroticized play is certainly in keeping with the spirit of Trap Door and succeeds in places where the last play failed. Yet at the same time, it almost seems like the production can't help falling into many of the same pitfalls."