Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...What distinguishes “Noises Off” from its peers is that Act Two is viewed from a backstage perspective. Whomever is doing “Noises Off’ usually flips the set around and the audience, returning after intermission, gets treated to the trauma of staging a sagging farce from a perspective that an audience does not usually see. Act Two is only about 25 minutes, but it is a stunning little physical symphony of shtick on a precisely coordinated par with anything from comedy’s golden age."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...His cast may be one of the hardest working onstage in Chicago right now: just watching them run up and down stairs and in and out of doors leaves one breathless. Unfortunately, even the best slapstick has limits (Three Stooges aside), and hoary gags such as simulated sex acts and violence played for laughs are repeated too frequently, producing diminishing comedic returns."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...To pull off a show like this it takes a shrewd and clever director. Weinstein, over the years has proved to be just that, and his cast of players are dynamic, energetic and quite flexible. There are a number of places where one can injure themselves easily. Hopping about a stage and stairs is not easy to do under normal conditions, but doing so with your shoelaces tied or your pants dropped to the ankles could be an Olympic feat! This cast is amazing and appears to be having as much fun as the audience."
WTTW - Highly Recommended
"...The sheer logistics of this whole production - a farcical ballet on steroids - suggests that Frayn (who many years after this 1982 work went on to pen the sharply intellectual “Copenhagen”) must have a computer-like brain. And performing the show must be the source of nightmares for every member of the Windy City cast. Yet somehow they get through it all without a glitch - except, of course, for the many hundreds of purposeful glitches that propel it."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...Appropriately labeled "the funniest farce ever written" by the New York Post, this production is an hilarious way to begin the New Year. With its countless plates of sardines and slamming doors, this classic farce was obviously the inspiration for the recent Broadway in Chicago National Tour of "The Play That Goes Wrong." Both are behind-the-scenes comedies that are always a treat for any audience. Between Jeffrey D. Kmiec's gorgeous, two-level set, that also features a complete backstage design for Act II, Mike Durst's superb lighting, Andrew Hatcher's many unique property demands and Jessica Kuehnau's perfectly appropriate costumes, this is one theatre experience Chicago audiences won't soon forget. "
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Highly Recommended
"..."Noises Off" may be the funniest play written in the English language in the last 40 years. You certainly won't get an argument from its opening night audience at the Windy City Playhouse. I can't remember when I've heard so much sustained laughter in a theater for an entire evening."
Buzznews.net - Highly Recommended
"...There is so much excellence in this show, including a pretty successful adoption of British accents (Kathy Logelin is dialect coach), but I particularly enjoyed Ryan McBride as matinee idol Garry Lejeune (and Roger Tramplemaine in Nothing On) - a character who emotes, but doesn't seem to have nay nouns at his disposal. Also charming was his floozy paramour, Brooke Ashton (Rochelle Therrien) playing an impossibly bad actress who is unable to deviate from her memorized positioning and blocking - even if it means she faces away from Lejeune when speaking to him."
The Fourth Walsh - Highly Recommended
"...NOISES OFF debuted in 1982 in London. It went to Broadway in 1984 and has enjoyed several revivals. The show's mechanics would be a challenge for any black box theatre. Not so for Weinstein at Windy City Playhouse. He provides a fun virtual reality for audiences to experience theatrical inner-workings. Although his orchestration is fascinating, after reading the playwright's synopsis and notes, I believe Weinstein doesn't quite facilitate the intended funnier caricatures."
Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended
"...One can only imagine how brutal the actual rehearsals for Noises Off must've been, as by act two the show is more an exercise in precise choreography and physical comedy than anything. Keep an eye out (between guffaws, that is) for which actors break a sweat and when, as they all appear to do at some point in the show. It's well earned, as they're falling down stairs and swinging axes and darting this way and that; you'll be forgiven if you don't know exactly where to look when during the show's more frantic moments. By the third act, you'll know Nothing On a bit by heart, which makes the multi-car pile-up of a crash it devolves into even more hilarious. We know where it should go, so watching where it does go makes for a gleeful bit of rubber-necking."
The Hawk Chicago - Recommended
"...While it may not wholly redefine Frayn’s well-loved script, Windy City Playhouse’s production of Noises Off succeeds in offering up a comedy sure to warm even the coldest of hearts. Who, after all, doesn’t love a good British farce and some sardines?"
Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended
"...Make no mistake: you will laugh and laugh a lot at Noises Off, and the close-up view in Act Two, when you are simply part of the backstage itself, is one of the great extended bits in farcical theatre. Coming off its triumph in Southern Comfort, Windy City Playhouse appears to have yet another hit on its hands."
Picture This Post - Highly Recommended
"...Anyone who has seen Noises Off and Southern Gothic by Windy City Playhouse is likely similarly hoping that they keep on doing non-traditional and interactive set design as staging as a formula. In this play we get to go behind the set of the play within a play with the actors in its short Act II. It’s difficult to imagine how Jeffrey D Kmiec’s set design could get any better."
NewCity Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...It's a crowd-pleasing show performed to exhausting perfection here, but there's something off amid all the noise, which hits afterward, like heartburn following a too-rich meal. Maybe it's the lack of human touch in any of the two-dimensional characters, or the snarky sadism that pervades the script, or the absence of any point to the unrelenting madness."