Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...As with most Raven productions, it looks great. Jeffrey D. Kmiec's reversible set, filled with mid-century modern furnishings and nouveaux-riche pretensions (except for Sybil's humble home), captures the keeping-up-appearances casual gaucheries of Gertrude's life in particular. Designer kClare McKellaston's costumes also suggests Julia's cougar tendencies and Gertrude's need to dominate with diamonds. But ultimately, "The Old Friends" feel like cardboard cut-outs rather than the fully fleshed-out characters one usually finds with the best of Foote."
Chicago Sun Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...“The Old Friends,” now at Raven Theatre, was in the works from the mid-1960s on, but was never produced in the playwright’s lifetime. There might well be a reason for that. The play is a wildly uneven mix of melodrama and farce —part modern Texas incarnation of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes,” and part small town version of “Dallas” (the TV series that only arrived in 1978). It has its moments, but it lacks the subtle power of Foote’s best work. And despite some deft portrayals by the large Raven Theatre cast, under the direction of Michael Menendian, it never quite finds its way into the heart."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...For the first 45 minutes of this Raven Theatre production, a clot of boozy, middle-aged, ersatz Texans with accents from several imaginary southern states hang out in someone's living room waiting to go to someone's party somewhere. Two of them are married, maybe the rest are related. The old lady can't stand living here anymore, who knows why, and when somebody offstage dies, she's apparently really stuck."
Windy City Times - Recommended
"...None of this diminishes our enjoyment at watching the kind-hearted poor achieve contentment and the selfish rich get their comeuppance, however petty the stakes for both. ( Albert, after brandishing a gun, winds up shooting a kitchen wall, while Gertrude's fury finds expression in pillow-punching chair-throwing tantrums-Jacobean tragedy this isn't. ) Raven's technical team replicates museum-accurate environments highlighting the contrast between the chic Ratliff household decor and the fifty-year-old furnishings of the Bordon homestead, as well as that of Julia's fashionable Emilio Pucci mini-shift with Sybil's flowered late-1950s cocktail dress. Michael Menedian's direction of an all-star ensemble for this Raven Theatre production makes it all enjoyable, even if the play ends just as we begin to know its personnel well enough to care about their future."
Theatre By Numbers - Recommended
"...What 'The Old Friends" has going for it is what every good opera has in spades: divas that can shatter glass with their ferocity. JoAnn Montemurro and Judy Lea Steele unleash a reign of drunken terror on their cohorts as Gertrude and Julia, chewing up everyone in their path. Actor Aneisa Hicks is so hilariously understated in the role of Catherine, Gertrude's housekeeper, it's a crime we see so little of her."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...The result of all this is a wild party with loads of booze, loads of screaming, many physical actions with a few gun-shots as the "friends" interact Texas-style. Brutally satiric in its depiction of 60's small-town moneyed folks, The Old Friends is a mildly entertaining glimpse into Foote's Lone Star world. JoAnn Montemurro's command of the stage is marvelous as the domineering rich old lady, while Lori Myers is terrific as the subdued returning relation struggling to find a new life in Harrison."
Chicago Theatre Review - Somewhat Recommended
"...For theatergoers who like their melodramas loud, strident emphasizing unexpected, broad comedy, this may be their cup of tea. We see a bevy of friendships that are, like money, easier made than kept. But for audiences expecting another of Horton Foote’s heartfelt dramas, simple in story, yet steeped in honest, quirky characterizations, this will be a disappointing evening of theatre."
NewCity Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...“The Old Friends” might have proved intoxicating to audiences had it been produced when Foote was originally working on it. However, in 2016 its mixture of absurdity and self-seriousness is difficult to swallow. This production needs to adjust its proportions if it’s to become palatable. It can be either a stiff or a sweet drink but it cannot be both."
