Blue Door at Victory Gardens Theater - Biograph

Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended

"...Andrea J. Dymond's Victory Gardens production is an elegantly staged affair, with a classy set from Keith Pitts and digital imagery designed to complement the poetry of the drama. But you're not taken on a sufficiently engaging journey, partly because Young seems to hang back too much and partly because the play doesn't seem to give him the chance to establish a relationship with the audience. And without that, the show feels flat."

Chicago Sun Times - Somewhat Recommended

"...Left alone in his handsome study (the show's marvelous set is the work of Keith Pitts), Lewis -- who on some level brings to mind Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- starts to entertain visions of his ancestors (all of whom are played by the endlessly energetic Lindsay Smiling). Viewed together, these male ancestors undergo every abomination perpetrated on black men in this country. Unfortunately, these abominations also begin to seem like a generic laundry list."

Copley News Service - Somewhat Recommended

"...Tanya Barfield’s “Blue Door” at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater explores an individual’s search cultural and racial identity, a relevant and familiar theme in modern drama. Unfortunately, her play doesn’t advance the discussion much."

Time Out Chicago - Recommended

"... Young turns in a shrewd performance as a man who’s been content to brush off casual racism and now feels the crush of a lifetime’s repression. It’s Smiling, though, who’s given the real muscle of the text, with three men who faced possible death on a daily basis. As a result, we nearly forget that the play is about Lewis’s story. Yet the occasional confusion is eased by wall-to-wall beauty. Keith Pitts’s set takes a note from Escher, with Lewis’s bookshelves exploding into a wall of boxes that might be the paving stones between the present and the past. They also serve as a canvas for Liviu Pasare’s projections and Charlie Cooper’s lights, two invaluable agents for bringing the distant past to the fore."

ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended

"...Blue Door is a rich theatrical experience filled with two strong performances and a haunting look a the lingering effects of blood memory. Barfield is a thought-provoking talented writer."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended

"...Director Andrea J. Dymond takes these men through a marvelous trip allowing Lewis to learn who he really is and why it is wrong to not believe in who he is and where his roots are. Lewis has chosen to disregard what his people endured in their lives that allowed him to have the opportunity to live the life he leads and while his memories of his father are in his mind not worth remembering, as the story unfolds the memories that do come back to him allow him to see the error in his judgment and go forward."