Ghostbox presented by InFusion Theatre Company at Apollo Theater

Examiner - Recommended

"...Coburn’s 45-minute ghost story is at times maddeningly (and a bit confusingly) esoteric.The work is a floating puzzle: Bit by bit, Coburn parcels out the pieces to the audience with slow, deliberation as Him (Kevin Crispin) and Her (Victoria Gilbert) debate the nature of evil and damnation in scenes of ghostly cinematography and shadowy live-action. It’s up to viewers to fit the fragments together, to discern the disturbing whole from snippets of snowy video, crackling radio transmissions and dialogue between a bereft young woman and her vanished, tormented husband. The questions that arise like menacing ectoplasm from the mysterious shoebox at the heart of the story make for a corker of a scary story: Where did the husband go? What’s in that shoe box anyway? Who (or more ominously, what) belongs to the disembodied voice coming through the radio static? And what is the looming, lurking dark presence that literally overshadows the young woman’s every move and thought?"

Time Out Chicago - Recommended

"... The story behind the broken marriage is evoked first in elusive onscreen flashes—of sunlit domesticity, interspliced with something darker—and in Gilbert’s riddling plaints to her missing husband (played by Crispin). But Colburn seems to lose his nerve: Perhaps out of a distrust of his own highly conceptual narrative, he allows its thematic aspects to become distractingly literal. The God-fearing husband’s sexual shame is externalized with projected text of particularly warped passages from Corinthians, and the demons haunting the couple are pointlessly personified by a shadowy figure that stalks them throughout the production. But Gilbert’s earthbound presence gives this supernatural tale a humanity that elevates it above a simple multimedia experiment."

ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended

"...I wouldn’t take the kids to see this show, just on the simple fact that it would be way over their heads, but there are some scary moments. Despite the complexities of this show, I do believe that casual theatre goers would appreciate this production as a way to broaden their horizons."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Not Recommended

"...Unfortunately, none of these questions has much dramatic weight in their present fragmented form.  "You wanted something I couldn't give you," says the woman, "that's why you went and died."  What exactly was that?  We have a glimmer of the loss of a child and the man's desire to be born again all interspersed between the static radio waves.  All of this is presided over by a mysterious hooded figure.  Is this the grim reaper?  I wish I could say I cared, but this work never made me feel anything other than anxiety and boredom, which in itself is theatrical death.  InFusion Theatre Company's mission is to produce mixed-media theatre that will bring new and adventurous work to a young audience, a very worthy and ambitious agenda.  I hope next time they will include a compelling story to augment all the static. "

Chicago Theater Beat - Highly Recommended

"...If Ghostbox were a film it would be in black and white. Director Mitch Golob keeps the scenes tight and efficient as if he were a film auteur. The suffering of humankind is said to be universal, but how it is expressed varies. It’s a refreshing experience to see a theatre production that does not go for the obvious but definitely hits the jugular. (A strange contrast to see the folks in line for Million Dollar Quartet in the main theatre.) It is a shot of surreal Technicolor and then an Icelandic blast downstairs in the Apollo Studio. Ghostbox is marketed for Halloween entertainment and it will hit the spot. Sleep well children..."