Bourbon At The Border Reviews

Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended

"...Bourbon is a powerful, passionate piece but a very tricky one. It takes a long time to build its intensity -- Cleage mostly holds her fire until the middle of the second act, when May unleashes a memory monologue with devastating impact. In Ron OJ Parson's production, the hugely capable Mance certainly delivers when it counts. Many in the audience were fighting back empathetic tears."

Daily Herald - Somewhat Recommended

"...The show is sluggish in spots and Cleage telegraphs the outcome early. But the competent production benefits from good casting and a moving performance by Lynette Mance -- who overcomes her initial tentativeness to blossom in the second act -- as a survivor of racial violence married to a man still coming to grips with it."

Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended

"...The Eclipse Theatre Company cast is solid, especially Lynette Mance as the wife: her climactic monologue recounting the atrocities her husband suffered is stunning. But director Ron O.J. Parson's production fails to build the tension that would justify the play's horrifying last-minute revelations."

Windy City Times - Somewhat Recommended

"...As May, Lynette Mance is a tribute to stalwart decency and non-negotiable love, her pain palpable in real tears and finally emotional devastation. Joslyn Jones brings a stolid, blue-collar actuality to horny, good-hearted, booze-loving, cheapskate Tyrone and J.J. McCormick seizes every moment as vigilant Rosa, a perfect friend and expert listener. Finally, Alfred Wilson gives his all to Charlie, a role that’s mainly one big secret wrapped up in deliberately distracting dialogue. The supposedly shocking ending works better as a moral warning to whites than an inevitable tragedy. Does it take the random murder of elderly white men to get our attention? Does action, like revenge, always come too late?"

Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended

"...Exposition, sadly, is all that Bourbon provides. Cleage adopts the standard theatrical objective of conveying how characters’ pasts live in the present, but she forgets that, to keep her audience’s attention, some drama has to happen in the here and now. Everything the characters talk about takes place offstage: Charlie’s efforts to get and keep a job, Rosa and her boyfriend’s nights out, the downtown killings of random white men (which, as soon as we hear of them, telegraph the conclusion)."