Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...Writers Theatre Chicago is adding to the seasonal horrors on the North Shore (traffic, crowded malls, visiting in-laws) with a decent and genuinely creepy new production of Jeffrey Thatcher's skilled, two-actor dramatic adaptation of a James story that's a good deal more than pulp. As James fans well know, "The Turn of the Screw" not only is an exceedingly scary yarn, but also a strangely modern and disrupted kind of text that can be read for its Freudian themes, its psychological complexity and its lingering sense of gothic sexual guilt."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...As played out in Writers' Theatre's ideally intimate space (where designers Jack Magaw and J.R. Lederle have worked magic with black lace curtains, mirrors and candles), Mellen and Banks are mesmerizing."
Daily Herald
- Highly Recommended
"...Distinguished by its ambiguity and the unreliability of its narrator/protagonist, "The Turn of the Screw" is a chilling tale about sexual awakening and the corruption of innocence. The Writers' Theatre production, which opened Wednesday at Books on Vernon (an intimate stage tucked into the back of the bookstore), works on every level."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...Thebus and her collaborators pack a tremendous amount of suggestion onto the Writers’ Theatre’s tiny second stage. In particular sound designer Andre Pluess generates a powerful uncanniness by means of his simple, vivid use of rain. The production serves the horror of its ghost story but doesn’t stop there: it also opens out into the greater, much more unsettling horror of its psychological mystery."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Kymberly Mellen anchors the shivery action with just the right measure of delicate obsession under Jessica Thebus’ direction, though the more active duties fall to LaShawn Banks, playing an array of characters ranging from the capable, but befuddled, housekeeper to the precocious boy undone by his own desires. After factoring in Jack Magaw’s veil-and-shadow scenic design, the result is 90 minutes to engage crime-fiction and bodice-ripper fans alike."
Chicago Free Press
- Highly Recommended
"...Miming props and even other characters is a tricky convention, but it works so well in Thebus’ embracingly theatrical production, which (like the original prose) smartly allows the viewers’ imaginations to do much of the work. While we see no flesh-and-blood Flora on this stage—Mellen and Banks interact with an imaginary girl—she is very real. (And the story is full of unsettling flourishes, such as Flora’s picking a bouquet of nightshade.)"
EpochTimes
- Highly Recommended
"...There is no set in this small theater where only a chair, special lighting and black curtains that slide from side to side as well as a mirror ( Jack Magaw makes simple- work!), great sound work by Andre Pluess, as always and lighting perfection by J.R. Lederie. This is an exciting 90 minutes that goes by ever so quickly ( despite the chairs being less than luxurious) and leaves one thinking about what we have just seen- are there really ghosts? Are these secrets, really those of the Governess and her life growing up? This production is one that allows you to use your own imagination to conjure up your understanding of what you have just experienced. Bravo! Isn't that what theater and literature should do?"
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...As the haunting backstory comes to light (and J.R. Lederle’s evocative lighting design goes dim), Hatcher’s adaptation proves surprisingly and creepily suggestive. Exactly what Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, the former governess and valet, did to young orphans Miles and Flora is never explicitly stated, but it’s crystal clear thanks to Thebus’s precision and Banks’s chops. The question of our narrator’s sanity, on the other hand, is left maddeningly in the dark."
ChicagoCritic
- Recommended
"...Using a minimalist set in the Writers’ Vernon Bookstore venue, The Turn of the Screw is a spine-tingling story deftly played by Mellen and Banks. LaShawn Banks works hard as he plays many parts—from a ten year old to a female house keeper to a pining lover and the narrator. Mellen anchors the story and gets us thinking if this is her dream or are the events she recalls actual events."
