Accelerando Reviews

Chicago Tribune - Not Recommended

"...Loomer's frenetic desire to touch on the Big Themes in the context of a Little Show means that she consistently overplays her hand. Will these two end up together? Should they? By the end, it's hard to believe that it really matters much at all."

Chicago Sun Times - Recommended

"...In "Accelerando" (or "speeded up"), which opened Wednesday night in director Brandon Ray's creatively staged and aptly lighthearted and absurd production for New Leaf Theatre, Loomer also appears to be a woman heart-racingly ahead of her time. Though this offbeat (or, more accurately, "beat-the-clock") romantic comedy was first produced in 1991, it possesses an eerie post-Sept. 11 aura as it poses such questions as: What is of the greatest lasting value, love or art? And in a world that now seems to move so fast -- with so much calamity and change crammed into an increasingly fast-paced existence -- shouldn't people just hurry up and grab whatever experience they hope to have?"

Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended

"...Loomer aims to provoke, but under Brandon Ray's direction, this production can be plodding. Isabel Quintero offers ethnic stereotypes as the girl's Mami, but at least she's energetic: no one else in the cast has her vigor. The two protagonists, portrayed generically by Georgann Charuhas and Michael Derting, fail to make much of an impression. Though entertaining at times, the couple's lonely search for love evokes little empathy."

Windy City Times - Not Recommended

"...the New Leaf Theatre Company strives mightily to make us love them, too...But all their industry cannot disguise Loomer’s smug self-assurance regarding the patience of theatregoers asked to pay for the privilege of listening to her argue with herself."

Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended

"...New Leaf’s production cruises when it lets Charuhas and Derting dig into their relationship unhindered by the nutty, reality-bending trickery, but there are potholes galore. The complicated technical aspects seemed to misfire as often as they hit (at least on opening night), the pacing is loose, and both the beginning and ending wink far, far too much at the audience. But in between, when Ray and his cast tap into the sincerity buried in the script, they infuse even the couple’s ethereal mothers with the weight of people we know: laughably absurd and depressingly desperate for purpose."

ChicagoCritic - Recommended

"...With terrific chorus work underscoring the action by Tiffany Joy Ross and fine work from Isabel Quintero (as Mami, She’s mother) and Annie Silivinski (as He’s mother) Accelerando unfolds as a sexy , cute provocative love story. We hear personal monologues from He and She as the two explore the temptation of love from the meeting to the seduction to wild sex to the thoughts of long-term commitment."