Natural Affection Reviews
Chicago Reader- Recommended
"...Joanne Iwanicka's set design, which nimbly evokes the very thin walls between these neighbors, steals the show by illustrating what the overwrought words cannot. Rachel Lambert directed."
Stage and Cinema- Recommended
"...Rachel Lambert’s staging makes the calamities count, refusing to condemn or condescend to Inge’s familiar yearners. Among a cunning cast, Coates is superb at conveying Sue’s deeply torn soul. Though too retroactively self-destructive and unprocessed in its pain to count as Inge’s best, Natural Affection (a title that contradicts itself) is catnip for eight actors and a crowd of grown-ups. The fact that it’s rarely done is no reason not to see it"
Third Coast Review- Recommended
"...Natural Affection is an imperfect play. The characters are not fully fleshed out and there are bumpy transitions. It’s in some ways a tough play to watch. But it is interesting to see another side of William Inge. Here, he’s not the playwright of the Midwestern small town but a writer who explores big city troubles."
Picture This Post- Recommended
"...It is no wonder that Eclipse Theatre has chosen William Inge as their featured playwright of the year. Gil's soliloquy describing his depression alone makes this play important to stage--- it is quite a dramatic moment delivered perfectly by Wagner. Reading that Inge did eventually commit suicide suggests the entire Eclipse season will be similar pass-the-prozac fare."
NewCity Chicago- Highly Recommended
"...The events in the play can be simply characterized as the seeking and refusal of affection, but the details cut like razors: the way Donnie stutters and trembles when he gives his mother a gift, his childish optimism for new clothes and perhaps a new job, his rivalry with Bernie, how Sue tells him he smells just like the disinfectant in the air of the orphanage where he was raised. Everyone in this play is an addict, stuck on desires that can never be sated. “I wish I could have written a comedy, but I couldn’t at the time,” wrote Inge."