A Devil Comes to Town Reviews

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...The highlight of the entire play is a wordless pantomime of the townsfolk demonstrating in increasingly erotic/ridiculous gestures the techniques by which they scrawl away at their masterpieces. The joke, of course, is on each and every one of us who has ever tried to make anything at all. Because even the most cynical, world-weary wretch harbors a tiny flicker of a dream that fools them into continuing the most hopeless pursuits. This one's funny because it's true."

Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended

"...From concept through execution A Devil Comes to Town is a haunting, surreal masterpiece, and a jewel in Trap Door Theatre's crown that you don't want to miss."

Buzz Center Stage - Highly Recommended

"...With the mesmerizing hold of a Moth Hour radio story and the visual creativity of the (late, lamented) Redmoon Theatre show, Trap Door Theatre's production of "A Devil Comes To Town," is so incredibly good that I urge you to stop reading this review and just get a ticket."

Third Coast Review - Recommended

"...It’s a Swiss town full of writers, where everyone is obsessed with getting published and winning a new literary prize. A Publisher arrives, eager to find new works to be published; he turns out to be the Devil in human form (horns are no longer de rigueur). That’s the basic setting and storyline of A Devil Comes to Town, now being staged by Trap Door Theatre in a fantastically choreographed hour-long performance. A Devil Comes to Town is occasionally puzzling but always engaging as long as you don’t demand that it make complete sense."

Werner's Theatre Reviews - Highly Recommended

"...A Devil Comes to Town demonstrates Trap Door Theatre’s fearless embrace of theatrical experimentation. By transforming Maurensig’s dark literary fable into an immersive stage experience, Ohringer and the creative team reaffirm the company’s reputation for boundary-pushing, avant-garde performance. In a city that thrives on artistic risk, Trap Door continues to make that risk feel essential."

NewCity Chicago - Not Recommended

"...The show comes off as a verbose Greek chorus portentously explaining things to us, without much foreground dialogue or action. The script is full of little lessons—deploring the “irrepressible viciousness that lies within us” and warning us against literature, “the greatest of arts, but also the most dangerous”—most of which tend toward a hyperbolic triteness."