The Promise of a Rose Garden Reviews

Chicago Reader- Somewhat Recommended

"...Dustin Spence's new play imagines the first class of female candidates in which some are successful-fertile ground for some sophisticated ideas about the politics of tokenism and the unique burdens carried by trailblazers. Elyse Dawson's production capitalizes on those themes at fleeting moments; overall, though, the play is so dramaturgically clumsy that it starts spinning its wheels two-thirds of the way through. Nonchronological storytelling, outsize performances, and military platitudes further hinder the emotional impact Babes With Blades seems to be aiming for."

Windy City Times- Highly Recommended

"...Playgoers looking for summer action-adventure excitement will find plenty of it in this saga of pioneering underdogs seeking the recognition bestowed upon our country's elite troops. Admit it: We never tire of cheering on/crying over heroes in uniform."

ChicagoCritic- Somewhat Recommended

"...Given the angels’ uncertainty over their lines, that may have simply been due to the soldiers also being under-rehearsed, in which case they will likely improve over the show. But it comes across in performance as if there’s something put-on about the women’s cussing, which somewhat undermines the play’s purpose. So, too, do moments of clichéd dialogue, such as two surviving female graduates hero-worshipping the third, who died in combat. At each moment in The Promise of a Rose Garden, it is clear what the artists were trying to do, but they only occasionally achieve it in full. Still, the show contains lots of exciting fights, and some interesting character moments."

NewCity Chicago- Recommended

"...The eye of the storm is not the story of their feminist triumph in unusual circumstances but the malaise of a system built on masculine notions of dominance. It's those who stand nearest the top who know that there's no heaven above and nothing below but a hell of bodies driven by fanatic ambition to reach an invisible summit, past which lies only their demise. "Whoever desires glory, the glory belongs entirely to God," says Sharif (a fiery-eyed Arti Ishak), the Ivy League-educated immigrant rebelling to pursue something so exceptional that the odds of achieving it are a death's breath from impossible. She alone confronts Rockford (stunning Maureen Yasko), a woman officer and war hero, whose traumas on the field are rearticulated in the chaos of her personal life and the cruelties only a woman given power in an order created by men to oppress them can enact upon her own self."