Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...My main issue, though, with Adjmi's play - his considerable comedic talents not withstanding - is that nothing really goes anywhere. There is an efficiently fearless takedown of the sitcom's assumptions on a moment-by-moment basis, but not an alternate arc that carries you through the end of the show. Murray's production, staged right on top of your face and not with the few extra feet of distance that this kind of physical comedy ideally needs, can't alter that. And thus you might find, as did I, that you have had enough before the end."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...And that truth has power up to a point. Adjmi pours a lot of wit into 3C, but even at a mere 90 minutes, both its satire of TV conventions and its critique of sexual hypocrisy become repetitive. His points made, Adjmi's left with nowhere new to take us."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Shade Murray's production for A Red Orchid retains an admirable sense of play in the face of Adjmi's heavily underlined undercurrents. (In one of the script's jumble of non sequiturs, the three roommates play an extended psychological parlor game in which they actually repeat the word "undercurrents" a dozen or so times, in case we aren't getting it.) Despite the series of physical pratfalls required of Brad, the play's Jack Tripper analogue, Nick Mikula has some of the production's most nuanced discoveries. Others in the cast don't find much more than Adjmi has provided on the page-shriekingly broad and increasingly tasteless episodes of awkwardness for its own sake."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...It's always Saturday night in 3C. In this closed world and hilarious hellhole, people break out, make out, and pass out. According to the show's publicity, "We could use a good laugh, an out-loud, roll-on-the-floor, cringe-worthy, ugly-cry laugh." Such guffaws come seldom in 3C, but there's no discounting the exposed pain beneath these daffy California caricatures. Murray keeps the mayhem moving, strategically denying us a pause to ponder the point of spoofing a genre that seemed to send itself up from the start."
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...What 3C ends up is a nasty parody that quickly becomes redundant as it wonders aimlessly and reverts to homophobic insults. The cast did their best with the poor material that would have been better served with some cuts and less homophobic bits. So, I wonder what the millennials will think of a parody from the 1970's? You'll either laugh heartedly or be offended with 3C."
Around The Town Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...This conclusion to Red Orchid's 24th season is a real mixed bag. The play begins satirizing an over-the-top television genre that's famous for glossing over reality. The characters are all buffoons, much like in the original "Three's Company," but they eventually settle down, opening up to reveal some much darker, internal problems. The problem is that they're never resolved. There's no real storyline, so the conflicts are strictly character-driven. It's a fun premise, but ultimately unsatisfying as a play. Audiences may want to think twice about knocking at the door of apartment 3C."
Chicago Theatre Review - Somewhat Recommended
"...But those moments are unable to overcome the sheer VOLUME of the play, and I’m not referring solely to the actor’s voices, which are turned up to 11 and are so loud that my ears were ringing by the play’s end. No, I also mean the play’s themes and situations, which never allow the characters any room to breath. Everything is so tightly wound, so clearly constructed, so conscience of the fact that it is a play, that things are never allowed to simply sit and develop. So we get unfortunate scenes like the one between Engstrom’s Mrs. Wicker and Gorman’s Linda, where Mrs. Wicker – off her meds and clearly unstable – screams her way through her dialogue, even turning the temperature of her tea into something to holler about (while the liquid is in her mouth, mind you). It’s just too much."
Third Coast Review - Somewhat Recommended
"...The cast is solid and their timing never misses. Murray choreographs a lot of activity in AROT’s tiny space, including dancing and playing the Faces game. But seeing Jennifer Engstrom play the possibly bipolar and medication-needy Mrs. Wicker is worth the ticket price. She swoops in wearing a colorful caftan with over-abundant jewelry and orange fright wig. She’s hilarious and just short of over the top. Grimm as Mr. Wicker is quiet but subtly menacing whether he’s making moves on Linda or Brad."
Picture This Post - Recommended
"...With director Shade Murray's touch to make this a campy laugh fest, the black hole of hyper-realism that we stumble into as the story unfolds hits hard. Adjimi's alchemy starts with youthful libidos, the-predator-next-door, post traumatic stress syndrome before it was named, and then adds more to bottle the early 70's zeitgeist when illusions of innocence were melting."
NewCity Chicago - Recommended
"...There is a very real possibility that the humor of “3C” won’t be to everyone’s taste. Admittedly there is no through line, narratively or even thematically, and the play ends as abruptly as it begins. But in a time where so much art strains for timeliness or contemporary relevance only to fall awkwardly short, A Red Orchid delivers a high dose for what ails ya: laughs."
