Chicago Tribune
- Highly Recommended
"...This is a quieter, darker, more contemplative and seemingly more personal piece of work. It provides fewer of the usual LaBute pleasures—and I suspect it will prove less popular at the box-office. But although the tricks are muted, the piece is uncommonly focused. When they write the book on LaBute’s career, I suspect this one will reveal more about this fascinating writer than any other of his plays."
Chicago Sun Times
- Recommended
"...Fleischmann, who just did such a splendid job directing the Mary-Arrchie Theater production of Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker," expertly captures Drew's nauseating passive-aggressive nature, while Cox, an old LaBute hand by now, is ideal as the volatile Terry, a man who knows he is damaged goods."
Daily Herald
- Recommended
"...A well-acted show, "Dark House" features finely honed performances by Fleischmann and Cox (whose helplessness in the final scene is devastating) as well a solid professional debut by Torem."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...Direcotr Joe Jahraus's midwest premiere production for Profiles Theatre is richly nuanced and exquisitely paced. As Drew and Terry, Hans Fleischmann and Darrell W. Cox reveal their characters' tortured souls by keeping them deeply under wraps."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...In 90 minutes and with three characters, Profiles Theatre presents Dark House as a skin-crawling story of intense emotional and physical violence. With his toxic trio of a cast, director Joe Jahraus finishes off Profiles Theatre's all-LaBute season in creeptacular fashion."
Chicago Free Press
- Highly Recommended
"...It’s hard to discuss the performances without revealing too much of the plot, although it’s not hard to get a mental jump on the tragic trajectory of this runaway train of a play. It’s a mark of LaBute’s smarts, and especially the cast’s skill, that the impact comes not from any sudden plot twists, but from watching the actors take this “Dark Dark” journey."
EpochTimes
- Highly Recommended
"...Director Joe Jahraus has taken this story and played it out with the same intensity in which LaBute created the words and story to say. This is one hour and thirty five minutes of engrossing story and one that the audience must truly pay close attention to. Under the direction of Jahraus with three strong actors, this play works! Profiles is a very small and intimate theater where the audience is on two sides of the actors and no matter which side you would be on, this show can be be visualized so that no action is lost."
Copley News Service
- Highly Recommended
"...The production on the Profiles postage stamp stage maximizes the play’s intensity and again validates Darrell Cox as one of the most versatile actors on the area scene. Cox’s Terry can shift from shambling good old boy to volcanic avenger in a heartbeat. He can be playful with the 16-year old and murderous with his brother. I’m not quite sure what Terry is all about mentally and emotionally, but Cox brilliantly rings the many changes in the man’s personality."
Talkin Broadway
- Highly Recommended
"... In a Dark, Dark House is one of the strongest and most archetypically Profiles stagings I've seen in some time. LaBute is a perfect playwright for this company that favors realistic and edgy social drama, and LaBute favors small casts that fit nicely on the stage in Profiles' 50-seat storefront theatre."
Centerstage
- Recommended
"...In the Chicago presentation, Cox clearly shines most brightly as the star of the show and wears the act of the apathetic, raspy, working-class outcast like a glove. Whether animated or meek, all eyes and ears are set squarely on him as Cox nearly single-handedly carries the show."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...The acting, as is almost always true of Profiles, is top-notch, with Fleischmann credibly sketching a vulnerable, overgrown adolescent, while Torem makes an endearingly quirky teen who’s too smart for her own good. Cox, by now, has this intense LaButean type down pat. As Profiles wraps up its LaBute season, here’s hoping the company, like the playwright, can find some new directions."
ChicagoCritic
- Recommended
"...In its Midwest Premiere, In a Dark Dark House deals with the troubled past of two most dysfunctional brothers. This provocative play contains LaBute’s naturalistic language filled with innocuous dialogue that reveals much through simple banter. LaBute’s plays build from simplistic action to unfold the hidden, dark side of his characters."
