Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Even men with terrible secrets can love, and if you benefit from love, you risk eventually losing it, and losing what has kept everything in balance. If you look Judd in the eye — and you can't avoid that, really — you might catch a glimpse of the end."
Chicago Sun Times - Recommended
"...As Carr, Judd, working the tiny space between two halves of the audience, very shrewdly leads us through the story, reminding us from the start that he is a man of old school discretion, and not one to easily spill his guts or reveal every private emotion. Yet something is at work in him now. A confession is moving inexorably out of him. And he will not apologize for it, either."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...Unfortunately, LaBute's flaccid narrative depends too much on the revelation of surprises that attentive audience members will probably have guessed. Which is a shame, because John Judd turns in a virtuoso performance, filled with honest, moving moments that almost redeem the material."
Talkin Broadway - Recommended
"...John Judd plays Edward with great force. Judd's an actor of authority and presence—much in the Brian Dennehy mold. His Edward is clearly bereaved but trying to look strong to whomever it is he might be talking to. Attempts at humor alternate with breakdowns. LaBute has written him as a wholly recognizable middle-aged, Midwestern man—successful enough, but somehow feeling like an outsider. It's a convincing performance, though marred a little by Judd's habit of periodically shouting out lines. Sometimes this is for emphasis, but these shouts seemed to fall into a pattern and often felt motivated by a desire for vocal variety rather than emotions of the lines. Jason Gerace directs Judd to speak at a fast, nervous pace, which suits Edward's distraught frame of mind."
Stage and Cinema - Somewhat Recommended
"...Director Jason Gerace paces this outcry as kinetically as LaBute detonates it. Unlike his character, who seethes with his secret and bullies the audience as he must have done to everyone in his too-long life, the wonderful Mr. Judd can do no wrong. Nevertheless, it's energy, not eloquence, which matters here. For some that won't be reward enough. This tour de trauma easily falls into the TMI category with a vengeance."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...Having seen 7 plays in Playwright Neil LaBute's repertoire, I know to expect the unexpected. LaBute has a way of creating an ordinary scenario and then plopping in the perverse. His set-up is normal until he takes a sharp turn into abnormal. That's why WRECKS caught me completely off guard. I'm so enamored by Judd's adoration for his wife, I forgot who was driving this vehicle. I'm enjoying a pleasant car ride and then LaBute intentionally and instantaneously smashes into a tree. Once again, I have been brilliantly blindsided by LaBute! After pulling myself out of the wreckage, my mind is still spinning from the crash."
Around The Town Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Edward tells us of his childhood, being left behind for someone to adopt and a sthe tale of his life, his meeting Jo-Jo, who was 14 years his senior and already married, to his boss, and their falling deeply in love, he continues to smoke away, one after another. As we hear his story and what he has had to do to get from “there” to “here”. While Judd is a strong actor and makes this character a man that we start to care about, we later learn things about the man and his late wife that young people would call “to much information” and once this is done, any feelings we might have for this man who is facing death himself soon from his own Cancer, begin to fade away."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...A one-man play, "Wrecks" follows the musings and philosophies of Edward Carr, a recently widowed father and businessman grappling with the loss of his near, dear wife at her wake. Played with pitch-perfect syncopation by the terrific John Judd, it's nearly impossible to find any fault with the play's sensitive, patient treatment of grief and despair. Through its concise 70-minute running time, Judd moves through a wide range of emotions - joy, ecstasy, despair, anger - but never does he force anything upon the audience; whether he's apologizing for his smoking habit, remarking on the physical (and sexual) perfection of his wife, or bemoaning on the obligatory sympathies of all the funeral goers, there is a flowing, organic nature to the work, and its an absolute testament to Judd's skills as an actor, writer Neil LaBute's talents as a playwright, and director Jason Gerace's sensitivity and patience, that all those disparate elements are juggled so effortlessly."
