Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...By ditching the burnt-to-ashes godlike image of her late husband and embracing Mangiacavallo's flawed but loving heart, Serafina springs back to life. Niccolai's highly burnished performance makes that transformation thrilling and soulful."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...In “The Rose Tattoo,” now receiving an absolutely glorious production by Shattered Globe Theatre, the symbol of that quest is not only captured in the title of the play, but is literally emblazoned on the bodies, and in the imaginations, of several of its characters."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...The character of Serafina, written for Anna Magnani, was conceived as a larger-than-life earth mother, but diminutive Eileen Niccolai makes the role her own in Greg Vinkler's beautifully detailed staging for Shattered Globe Theatre. Niccolai's scrappy little slugger of a Serafina is both comical and poignant, appropriate for a play that veers boldly between tragedy and farce. She's well matched by Nic Grelli as her endearingly impetuous suitor, and the large supporting cast bring vivid energy to Williams's vision of human life as a rich, raucous folk pageant."
Gapers Block - Highly Recommended
"...Greg Vinkler directs this Shattered Globe production with clear fondness for the quirks of the Sicilian community. The cast is excellent all around with outstanding performances from the leads: Eileen Niccolai as Serafina Delle Rose, the grieving widow; Nic Grelli as Alvaro Mangiacavallo, the earthy visitor who lifts her veil of grief; and Daniela Colucci as Rosa, Serafina's daughter."
ShowBizChicago - Highly Recommended
"...I commend Shattered Globe and Greg Vinkler for bringing to the stage a truly beautiful production of The Rose Tattoo. You should rush to see this rare revival before it closes. It will make you believe once again in the transformational power of love."
Chicago On the Aisle - Highly Recommended
"...When I look back on Chicago's current theater season, certain performances will stand out as they always do for that singular blurring of actor and character that makes you feel more like you're eavesdropping than watching a play. No doubt that special few will include Eileen Niccolai's earthy, vulnerable, funny embodiment of Serafina Delle Rose in Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo" with Shattered Globe Theatre."
Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended
"...In this very juicy play, Serafina’s steamy saga couldn’t feel more vibrant, immediate or combustible. Vinkler orchestrates Williams’ alternately comic and melodramatic potboiler with aplomb. This wise if messy drama offers casebook proof of how unwittingly hilarious is the gulf between one person’s outsized ardor and an uncaring world’s bonehead indifference. Williams used drugs, sex and booze to counter the contrast. But to our great gratitude he also wrote plays like this."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...A well staged drama, nicely directed by Greg Vinkler, containing a worthy Tennessee Williams script with superb acting equals a wonderful night of theatre. The Rose Tattoo is a major theatrical experience and a "must see" eveny."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended
"...At the play's heart, it is a dramatic comedy. Characters (in the stereotypical, highly expressive state of Sicilian Americans) are pulling each other's hair one moment, weeping in despair after, and laughing for joy by the end of a scene. It is a good time to watch, and also very heart wrenching. Director Greg Vinkler has hit at the pulse of the piece and staged a highly watchable, engaging classic play."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...It is not often that one can see Tennessee Williams’ “The Rose Tattoo”, his Tony Award classical love story, but leave it to Shattered Globe Theatre company to take the risk. They have not only taken on this rather large cast of characters in a smaller theater, but have cast it so solidly that one feels that they have gone back in time to the early 1950’s in a small village along the Gulf Coast between New Orleans and Mobile. Under the sterling direction of Greg Vinkler (many of you may recognize his name from all the reviews of productions at Chicago Shakespeare where he has appeared in lots of productions) on a divine set by Sarah Ross, who truly shows that one can take a “black box” 99 seat theater and take the viewers to another place and time."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...Everything about this production bespeaks love, both as part of the production’s artistry as well as within Williams‘ story, itself. This classic of the American Theatre is a perfect offering for the upcoming cupid-inspired holiday because it’s a Valentine filled with passion, love and all the wonderful things that make us human."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Highly Recommended
"...In the 1990’s, Shattered Globe was the best acting company in the Chicago area. The troupe hit some bumps in the road in the new millennium but “The Rose Tattoo” returns to its glory productions of the nineties. Niccolai was a Shattered Globe star from the organization’s earliest days and her performance as Serafina reaffirms her status as one of our area’s premier actresses. Thanks to her and her colleagues the audience gets a rare chance to see Tennessee Williams in an expansive, earthy, and ultimately joyful mood."
NewCity Chicago - Recommended
"...the production works on other levels, capturing the script's mix of pungent humor and existential insight. The fifteen-performer play is often described as operatic, in reference not only to the chorus of small-town busybodies who see and know all, but also to the Italian-spiced dialogue, in which every utterance is an aria. Supported by Charles Cooper's delicately rose-tinted lighting and Sarah Ross' imaginative "exploded" house set, which effaces the boundary between inside and outside, director Vinkler gives us a feel for the town's fully communal life, bound by a shared and sometimes suffocating morality. The Sicilian villagers "find God in each other," says a wise woman. "When they lose each other, they lose God.""