Chicago Tribune
- Highly Recommended
"...The extraordinary Invictus Theatre Company summer production of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" is a throwback to the long-lost glory days of Chicago's non-Equity theater scene, a time when a lack of resources, let alone experience, did not prevent hungry companies of young artists from taking audacious risks on epic works."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...First produced in the early 1990s, Angels was written as a white-hot response to some of the world-changing tragedies of the 1980s-in particular the AIDS epidemic and the Chernobyl disaster. When I saw the play's 1993 Broadway premiere, those events were still painfully fresh, while speculation about what the new millennium might bring added a sense of apocalyptic urgency. Now, 25 years into the 21st century, Angels resonates as a history play that offers enlightening-sometimes hopeful, sometimes chilling-perspective on the present."
Talkin Broadway
- Highly Recommended
"...Continuing its ambitious season, Invictus Theatre Company is presenting Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Part One: The Millennium Approaches and Part Two: Perestroika. The work, grounded in Kushner's strong preference for transparent, malleable staging, seems tailor-made for a company like Invictus, and the endeavor, directed by the company's founder, Artistic Director Charles Askenaizer, does not disappoint."
Stage and Cinema
- Highly Recommended
"...Angels in America is one of the greatest plays in the American theatre canon. Period. Tony Kushner created a two-part epic story of unforgettable characters, both lovable and despicable, that captures a moment in American history-the Ronald Reagan era-that changed our community forever. If you have never seen it, or even if you have, make plans to see Invictus Theatre Company's production right now. It runs through September 7, so you have time to make this work. Even at over seven hours for both parts-Millennium Approaches and Perestroika-you will feel astonishingly invigorated."
Around The Town Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...ony Kushner has quite a lot to say. And with blunt force, he demands to be heard and taken seriously. His 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning, epic masterpiece, Angels in America, takes the audience on a fantastical journey of death and destruction in Ronald Reagan's America, yet spreads a message of life's intrinsic value and our collective hope for the future. Through plagues and persecution, failing bodies and broken hearts, this is a transcendent and timely story of life itself, undergirded with a vision of the universe coming apart. This production presents these ideas in a moving, beautiful and unexpectedly bold way."
Buzz Center Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...Directed with striking clarity by Charles Askenaizer and assisted by Kevin Rolfs-who also designed the production's remarkable set-this version of Angels doesn't merely revisit America's past; it interrogates it. Rolfs' design, echoing the collapse of once-sacred institutions, transforms hospitals, apartments, courtrooms, and Central Park into ghostly battlegrounds for justice, truth, and redemption. Brandon Wardell's extraordinary lighting heightens the effect-especially one cue so immersive and thunderous, you might think the ceiling is about to cave in. (Seriously-OMG.)"
Allie and the After Party
- Highly Recommended
"...A desolate, falling apart, wounded set frames these characters living in New York during the AIDS epidemic. Invictus' production feels true to the original play and themes that strike a chord to the happenings of today."
NewCity Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Michael D. Graham oozes with ignominy as Roy Cohn, based on the real-life lawyer and political insider, who reels with the news that he has also contracted AIDS-ironic after participating in the "Lavender Scare" that purged homosexuals from government employment. Askenaizer runs each scene into the next with no gaps, and the prelude to the latter scene is occasionally superimposed over the denouement of the former, fitting the frenetic energy of the actors like a tailor-made suit."
