Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...The dominant performance here is from Kirsten Fitzgerald, who plays a larger-than-life hostess dispensing bitter barbs along with the cocktails. Along with Larry Grimm, who plays her emaciated, angry, estate-agent husband, Fitzgerald finds delicious shades of Edward Albee's George and Martha, but still manages to be a recognizable type whose ministrations and manipulations are not confined to one side of the Atlantic."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Under the snap, crackle and pop direction of Shade Murray, Leigh’s play (a tighter, more class-conscious variation on Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”) is now having the stuffing acted out of it by five bravura members of A Red Orchid’s ensemble. At once hilarious, corrosive and poignant, the production serves as a searing indictment of the terrible things human beings can do to each other in their own homes."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...This 1977 tragedy of manners by Mike Leigh--the auteur best known for films like Happy-Go-Lucky and Vera Drake--operates on the fool-around-and-fool-around-and-somebody-ends-up-in-tears principle: it makes dysfunction hugely amusing right up to the moment when the bottom falls out. Kirsten Fitzgerald is not to be missed as Beverly, the hostess with a strange talent for getting her guests to overcome their best instincts."
Copley News Service - Highly Recommended
"...Shade Murray directs with a strong sense of pace, unspooling the dialogue and confrontations like the audience is eavesdropping on a real party, with all its comic horrors. Daniel Stratton designed a nicely detailed living room interior that fits comfortably within the ultra intimate Red Orchid playing area. Melissa Torchia designed the costumes."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...Leigh’s prickly dialogue is well handled—Fitzgerald turns Beverly’s most innocent expressions into comic grenades—but the play’s pacing often sags, and Grimm’s cool portrayal of Laurence strips the role of its browbeaten vulnerability. But Mierka Girten’s vacantly sweet Angela is a fine foil to the monosyllabically savage Tony (Danny McCarthy), and an impromptu dance party showcases Girten’s and Fitzgerald’s gift for physical comedy. Just as the awkwardness reaches an almost unbearable pitch, the play slaps shut on an antic, unfinished note, underscoring a very funny but mixed production."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...This is as fine an ensemble work as you’ll find. This wonderful Equity cast nails the dark humor while slowly allowing their true thoughts to emerge. Abagail’s Party is a master class on acting from swift comic timing to honest character portrayals."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended
"...Directed by Shade Murray with a sterling cast of actors portraying very special characters, this play is in the light of an English "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". Abigail is a teenager who resides with her mother and brother down the street. She does not enter into the story at all, except it is her party that allows Beverly (a wild and crazy performance by Kirstin Fitzgerald) and Laurence (Larry Grimm in an understated character study of an unhappy man) to host Abigail's mother Susan (Natalie West, who you might recall from "Roseanne" on TV, who I guess is the best actress at playing women who have no expression) and the new "kids" on the block, Tony (Danny McCarthy) and Angela (Mierka Girten) over for the evening."
