Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...The difficult, famous last scene of "The Grapes of Wrath" works beautifully here, partly due to the work of the actress Emily Marso, who plays Rose of Sharon with apparent subjugation to all she feels, but mostly due to the number of intense personal investments in this essential neighborhood theater, and all it means to Chicago theater, that have been banked early in the night."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...“The Grapes of Wrath,” one of the greatest of all epic American journeys, is now being played out on The Gift Theatre’s slender strip of a storefront stage by a magnificent company of actors that easily lives up to the starry original cast featured in the 1988 Steppenwolf Theatre production so beautifully adapted for the stage by Frank Galati."
Windy City Times - Recommended
"...But overall, there's no denying what a tremendous dramatic achievement The Grapes of Wrath is for the ever-plucky Gift Theatre. Please forgive this crude analogy of size not mattering, because the artists at The Gift truly know how to work best with what they've got."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...The ensemble is strong, but if there’s a standout, it’s Jerre Dye as Jim Casey, an ex-preacher turned proto-hippie. Dye brings a jazzy, boozy stream-of-consciousness to the man that truly makes him feel like a prophet. You know when he talks about how maybe all men are just part of “one big soul” that it’s time to sit up and listen. Besides, with 19—yes, 19—actors all sharing such small quarters, the idea of them also sharing a single soul doesn’t sound that crazy."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...In a production in Jefferson Park's storefront Gift Theatre, Frank Galati's adaptation of John Steinbeck's renowned novel is zoomed in on more closely than ever, with the tiny playing space leaving room for little more than an intense examination of the characters played by a nineteen-member cast. The backdrop resembles something from a community theatre production, but by the end of the play, it seems possible that that was the point, for while the acting is stellar, the combination of Galati's script and Erika Weiss's direction take The Grapes of Wrath into the realm of pure mythology. It's really quite an amazing thing to watch."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...This is an incredible production of an 80-year-old story that couldn't feel more timely. With so much recent discussion about how to make America strong, about immigrants and jobs, this play offers another view of our country. It unflinchingly looks at who we are and how we got to this place in history. This heartbreaking tale of men and women, uprooted from their homes and forced to humble themselves in order to survive, is all collectively a part of what's known as the American Dream. And the honesty and power behind Steinbeck's novel takes centerstage in this powerful production."
Dueling Critics - Highly Recommended
"...I never saw the Steppenwolf original, but I find it hard to imagine that it could be any better than Gift's rendition (directed by Erica Weiss) of the Frank Galati adaptation of Steinbeck's novel. A wild-eyed Jerre Dye as ex-preacher Jim Casy is balanced by the calm sobriety of Namir Smallwood as Tom Joad, and the pair forms a nucleus around which the rest of the cast of characters spins, with individuals regularly spinning off into space as the Oakies' trek to California gets tougher and tougher. The final scene in which Rose of Sharon suckles the starving farmer feels less powerful than it should, but the rest of the piece shines in its full left-wing political glory. And it feels much less dated than we'd like it to."
Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended
"...Director Erica Weiss masterfully directs a cast of 19 in the claustrophobic Gift Theatre space. Weiss makes an interesting decision in casting the Joads as a multiracial family, which adds even more texture to the story."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Since it's publication in the spring of 1939, there has likely never been a time in which John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath" has failed to arouse an array of powerfully mixed emotions. The Gift Theatre revives Frank Galati's masterful adaptation, which premiered in Chicago before moving to Broadway where it won the 1990 Tony Award for Best New Play. Undaunted by these twin legacies, The Gift ventures west with all the bravery and gumption of the Joads themselves."
