Mnemonic Reviews

Chicago Tribune - Not Recommended

"...The narrative's third prong is the true life story of a centuries-old mummified corpse that was discovered in 1991, trapped in the ice on a mountain between Austria and Italy - an unseen character (whose life and circumstances of death are debated by a raft of scientists) who is, ironically, the most alive and three-dimensional of all the play's characters. Which is both a triumph of storytelling and a damning indictment of the rest of the piece. What any of these three stories have to do with memory - a theme so heavily stressed at the play's beginning - is beyond me. The connections, they just do not make."

Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended

"... While none of the several dozen fractured, repetitive scenes seems much concerned with memory, the show's two central images—a young woman trying to identify her long-absent father from a box of his stuff, and a bevy of scientists trying to infer a frozen Neolithic man's behavior from his belongings—suggest a quest for root causes. But the parallels are hasty and superficial, and the text wanders so far afield for two hours that even the most evocative ideas barely register. Red Tape's willing cast are intermittently interesting, despite their nearly impenetrable accents."

Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended

"...In director Brandon Ray's production, the true story is more compelling than the fictional. Despite sympathetic performances by Carr and Reardon, their characters remain underwritten ciphers, Virgil particularly so. Ray creates the occasional compelling visual, often involving interactions between live actors and Liviu Pasare impressive projection designs."

The Fourth Walsh - Somewhat Recommended

"...If I remember right from the press release, MNEMONIC was to call me to question who I am and where I came from. Instead, it made me question the real purpose of this play and the choices in devising it. I will remember some of the very well executed pieces by the talented ensemble but I won’t remember what MNEMONIC was about. And it won’t be because I forgot. It’ll be because I never really knew."