Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...The brutal comedy, the cycle of denial, spiky family dynamics - all of that works, and it feels earned (which seems appropriate; Grote is a staff writer for "Mad Men"), right up to that nervous breakdown, trash-the-stage moment led by Nate Whelden, throwing his back into it while covered a layer of slime and the gunk."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...The plot of Jason Grote's 2008 play is far-fetched; still, the dark comedy effectively captures the dysfunctional dynamics of denial and guilt in a family with secrets-which is to say, most families. And the performances and design in Marti Lyons's crisp staging for Sideshow Theatre Company are uniformly spot-on. This Chicago premiere is quirky, intriguing, funny, creepy, and affecting all at once."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...The messiness does have its limits. During the first act, the play builds an enticing atmosphere and raises a slew of compelling questions. In the second half, though, it starts to spin its wheels. The uniformly brilliant performances don't quite distract from the play's turn to a circular structure, repeating itself without pushing the story forward. When it's finally time to settle accounts, the show feels less like it's risen to a climax and more like it's hit the same wall so many times it's finally had enough. Still, it's refreshing to see a play so unafraid of making a mess of itself and an ensemble daring and capable enough to pull it off."
ShowBizChicago - Highly Recommended
"...In Sideshow Theatre Company's production of Jason Gote's dark comedy Maria/Stuart we have the pleasure of sitting in on the wonderfully dysfunctional family of sisters Lizzie, Sylvia and Marnie as they host a birthday party for their mother, Ruthie. Lizzie's daughter Hannah is also invited as is Marnie's son Stuart - although he is preoccupied by his recent purchase of the rights to a decades-old and unsuccessful superhero comic known as American Male. He is, by the way, aware - and the women won't let him forget - that his super hero sounds very much like a gay men's fashion magazine, but he rests assured American Male is do for a revival."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...Too excellent for specific adulation, Lyons' taut sextet conveys the free-floating dread that oddly stabilizes the characters' convenient quirks and the plot's bizarre imaginings (including two food fights). Grote's refusal to explain the family's faults, normally an authorial cop-out, is all to his credit: Dark comedies that define its creatures by crazes need all the mystery they can muster. What you don't know can fascinate even more than the rest - so this play amply confirms."
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...Maria/Stuart'stitle is a pun on the rhetorical tragedy Maria Stuart written in 1800 by Friedrich Schiller (whose bust features conspicuously in Grote's play). Though beyond perhaps slight similarities to the Strum and Drang school, I'm afraid the reference is lost on me. A more apt precursor here would be the family romances of Sam Shepard, most clearly his Fool for Love. Shepard's own interests in the incestuous family romance, his uses of magical realism, and the ways in which his plays descend from sadness in a menacing uncertainty foreground much of what Grote seems to be gesturing toward."
Around The Town Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Dysfunctional families have been utilized in many a play, and "Maria/Stuart", now in it's Chicago premiere at Theater Wit, sure fits the bill. Written by Jason Grote, this is the story of three sisters and their relationship with each other and their mother.It is the mother's birthday and they are all going to gather for a birthday dinner.In the very first scene we meet Stuart ( fiercely played by Nate Whelden) a young comic strip creator who lives with his mother, one of the sisters, Marnie ( Jennifer Joan Taylor)."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...it is a relatively new play and needs a bit more tinkering. The mysteries of the pink envelope and Spanish Mary, and the ethical problems they raise, are well crafted and carefully cultivated from scene to scene. But one secret peters out too soon and is not given the full climax it deserves. And in-between revelations the same old expository nature of who is allied with who goes back and forth, the same old family gossip stirred up, the same ground tilled over and over while more interesting earth, where answers may lie buried, remains undisturbed."
