Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...Joe Jahraus' production includes stellar performances from Caroline Dodge Latta's tremulous but tyrannical office vet Mercedes to Greta Honold's blissfully underachieving Daphne, who likes everything about working except the work. An unexpected visit from her bad-tempered banker boyfriend (Tyler Gray) clues us in to just why the office—even this one—might be more homey than home for her."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Over the course of barely two work days, we sense the cliques and power plays, the individual neuroses, the rumors of a murderer on the loose, the terror of an abusive boyfriend, the havoc of a thunderstorm, the coldness of an invisible boss and the nastiness of the asbestos case being handled. Each person feels like an isolated drone, no one is ever at ease and the real casualties (and survivors) are deftly nailed."
Chicago Reader
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Joe Jahraus's uneven staging can get too nuanced for its own good, losing its dramatic arc in actorly tics. Still, it creeps up on you as the thugs make themselves known and the victims pile up."
Examiner
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Playwright Adam Bock needs to either write a second act or take his play and go home. Because it is woefully unfair to string people along with all kinds of delicious promise only to leave them cold. Men. How typical. Ah, but we digress. Let’s be clear – We’re not talking ambiguity here. Many’s the wonderful drama that has left us haunted by possible meanings and unsettled about precisely just what happened and what it all meant. “Thugs” isn’t ambiguous. It’s half-baked."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Nothing could be easier than to play this malaise for laughs—ho-ho-ho, look at these scaredy-cats—but director Joe Jahraus and the tightly integrated cast assembled for this Profiles Theatre production ( running in repertory with Men Of Tortuga ) instead embrace the author's icily somber exploration of a microcosmic society on the edge of breakdown, taking full advantage of their circumscribed space and our confinement therein."
EpochTimes
- Somewhat Recommended
"...The production has some fine actors trying to make the best of what was written and director Joe Jahraus uses the very small stage at Profiles very well, including an almost real appearing elevator (thanks to Wayne Karl), but the set seemed a bit cumbersome for the small stage and the number of actors. A lot of action takes place in this 60 minutes and we meet many characters, but we only get a glimpse of what their lives may be outside of the office."
Copley News Service
- Highly Recommended
"...Possibly “The Thugs” is a parable about the destructive effects of deadening labor, allowing the bored and restless temps to indulge in fanciful conspiracy theories. It could psychologically explore the insidious impact of gossip on idle minds. Or it could be just what it seems on the surface, nearly an hour of unexplained creepiness. I enjoyed it. Others may feel they were victims of a theatrical non-event."
Talkin Broadway
- Highly Recommended
"...the show is jam-packed (in spite of its brevity) with a million little pieces of gossip and back-biting and pecking-orders and is, in its own quiet way very, very funny thanks to director Joe Jahraus. Caroline Dodge Latta is hilarious and more than a bit harrowing as the muttering, pleading Mercedes, and Somer Benson is primly fearsome as the waspish office-manager Diane. The whole cast is as sharp (and as wicked) as a tack on a swivel chair."
Edge
- Highly Recommended
"...Under Joe Jahraus’ direction the snappy dialog moves rapidly and this one-hour show feels even quicker. I think I enjoyed The Thugs so much because it makes no claim to being "important" theater, yet it manages to get a good way below the skin of what life is all about: It’s temporary."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...Jahraus’s tightly choreographed direction allows just the right amount of quirk to seep through the seams, particularly in the performances of Caroline Dodge Latta as a trying-too-hard eccentric and Bob Pries as the over-insinuating office gay."
ChicagoCritic
- Recommended
"...I liked this troubling work. The cast did outstanding ensemble acting that brought out each character’s foibles. The staging, lighting and pacing worked to create enough dramatic tension to sustain the suspense. We are satisfied with the show’s resolution despite not having all elements explained."
