Chicago Tribune
- Highly Recommended
"...I can't promise a whip-bang-shebang experience. But I can say that if you care some for poems and poets, writers and their worries, and love affairs that last a lifetime, you'll be enthralled."
Chicago Sun Times
- Recommended
"...The Remy Bumppo production at Lake View’s Theater Wit follows more than 30 years of private letters between Bishop and Lowell. The primary problem is that until the second act of the 100-minute drama really gets going, the letters — and the intertwined lives of the writers — are hard to invest in: It’s like hearing two people you really don’t know converse long-distance with a communicative shorthand you’re not always privy to."
Chicago Reader
- Recommended
"...But it's Lowell's emotional breakdowns and alcoholism that seem to really drive their connection in Ruhl's play. It's pretty clear that he views Bishop, in some way, as "the one that got away," despite her being a lesbian. She's his sounding board, and he seems to need her more than she needs him, as he often shares more of himself in his letters-and his work-than Bishop does. This is a proclivity that gets him in a bit of trouble with Bishop late in the play when she takes him to task for blurring the line between fact and fiction in writing about his failed marriage to Hardwick."
Around The Town Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Over the years, theater audiences have been witness to many a play that has an unusual love story as its theme. In Sarah Ruhl's "Dear Elizabeth" we are witness to a "friendship" of some 30 years of letter writing between a man, Robert Lowell ( Deftly handled by Christopher Sheard) and Elizabeth Bishop ( played to perfection by Leah Karpel). Their correspondence was a blend of personal stories and creative writing and while they had several meetings in person, their connection was more of a great friendship mixed with a different type of love!"
Chicago Theatre Review
- Highly Recommended
"...It almost seems like serendipity that Theater Wit is presenting a pair of Sarah Ruhl plays in two of their three venues. This is a lovely, often humorous, deeply sensitive and ultimately heartbreaking play that's told through letters. It's a production that touches the heart and soul. The biographical story soars with eloquence and compassion, empathy and humanity. For lovers of language and literature, there can be no finer theatrical offering in Chicago than Remy Bumppo's wonderful production of DEAR ELIZABETH."
Buzz Center Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...Dear Elizabeth is also a celebration of the art of letter writing. This is a theme Ruhl has touched on in other works as well. We may be living in the most advanced age of communication, but so much is lost in emojis and brief text messages. In these heartfelt letters there’s such depth and substance that you’re nearly envious of their loyal friendship."
The Fourth Walsh
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Playwright Sarah Ruhl has constructed a love letter to a writer's creative process. Ruhl cleverly utilizes actual correspondence between Poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell to chronicle their relationship over three decades. Bishop and Lowell meet because of mutual admiration. Over time, this appreciation grows from respected colleagues to trusted friends. Their thirty years of written letters and poetry reflect the success and failures in their love life and their work. They seek personal and professional refuge in the empathy of the other."
Third Coast Review
- Recommended
"...A pair of poets, in love with words, are sort of, possibly, in love with each other. Or not. That's the theme of Dear Elizabeth, an epistolary play by Sarah Ruhl. Christina Casano directs the two-character play, now being staged by Remy Bumppo Theatre, in which the two writers carry on a correspondence with occasional meetings over three decades. The full title of the play is Dear Elizabeth: A Portrait in Letters from Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell and Back Again."
Chicago On Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...You can be forgiven if you are unfamiliar with the work of the poet Elizabeth Bishop. Despite being a US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, she published only 100 poems in her lifetime but is considered one of our greatest poets. Sarah Ruhl's 2014 play Dear Elizabeth, now playing at Theater Wit in a Remy Bumppo production, brings us up close to both her and fellow poet Robert Lowell through the letters that they sent to each other over a thirty year friendship. It is probably not for everyone, but this play is beautiful, moving, and perfectly human."
MaraTapp.org
- Highly Recommended
"...It’s a rare play that make us want to write letters and read poetry so the fact that Dear Elizabeth inspires both makes it a treasure in Chicago’s theatrical offerings. It left my companion, a writer herself, and me longing for a return to this epistolary art, and heading home to read poems by the poets with whom we’d just spent a couple hours."
NewCity Chicago
- Recommended
"...The success of its parts allows the play to succeed as a whole. Sheard and Karpel are acute in their portrayals of two towering intellectual talents who struggle with isolation from intimacy. The light projections and abstract set immerse you in their world, and tender intimacy direction by Micah Figueroa gives the few moments Robert and Elizabeth meet in person a sense of robust dramatic tension. Remy Bumppo’s “Dear Elizabeth” is a superb example of historical fiction and a fitting celebration of two prolific artists."
