Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...I don't think “Madagascar” is the equal of “The Overwhelming,” the last Rogers play (about characters in Rwanda) produced at Next, also under Senior's direction. And I think this particular take on “Madagascar” is just a tad too clinical and cool in places — plays structured this way always risk that the audience will think some version of “to heck with these chatty, needy people,” and check out. That risk is real here, although these three fine actors, especially the gently complex Vander Broek, do everything in their formidable powers to avoid it. The monologues are rich, fresh and compelling — Roman is precise and yet she oozes subtext — even as they could do to loosen a top button or two from time to time."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Like playwright Jon Robin Baitz, a slightly older contemporary, Rogers is a master of spinning personal stories that are shot through with strong global reverberations. In “Madagascar,” which calls to mind Baitz’s “Three Hotels,” he gives us a seamlessly interwoven tapestry of monologues spoken by a trio of intimately interlocked Americans who, at various times over the years, have inhabited the same elegant hotel room in a prime location in Rome."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...But J.T. Rogers's haunting, intelligent, tightly constructed drama--set in Rome, not Africa--quickly dispels any unfortunate associations. In a hotel room overlooking the Spanish Steps, a mother, daughter, and family friend deliver an intricate series of interlocking monologues that wheel like starlings around a family tragedy."
Windy City Times
- Somewhat Recommended
"...This is powerful material but it's not a powerful plot. Madagascar isn't a play of action or incident, but of character. It requires an astute director and three extremely capable actors to make it click and keep it interesting for an audience. Fortunately, this Chicago premiere has the team it needs. This is not material which can be rushed, and director Kimberly Senior unzips the onion at a relaxed pace that's never too-slow. Carmen Roman is utterly perfect as the elegant and patrician Lillian, her pain as unexpected as her passion. Cora Vander Broek as June brings a sense of life-unfulfilled to the quiet sister/daughter who is competent but lost. Finally, Mick Weber beautifully underplays Nathan, the plain-spoken survivor of, and witness to, the family disaster. At the same time Nathan is the unwitting catalyst."
Copley News Service
- Recommended
"...The storyline has a strong whiff of soap opera, but the playwright dresses up his talk with musings about themes like social responsibility and guilt. The characters are self involved and estranged and it’s difficult to relate to any of them, even Lillian with her multiple sorrows. June and Lillian end tragically and Nathan is left alone with his regrets and sense of loss, but I didn’t much care. The characters, for all their suffering, never moved me."
Centerstage
- Recommended
"...“Haunting” is definitely the appropriate adjective for this play about characters unable to move on from the ghosts in their lives."
Chicago Stage Review
- Recommended
"...Director Kimberly Senior brings the mystery and intensity of Madagascar vividly to life, or afterlife as the case may be, by compiling a beguiling cast that irresistibly invites you into the intimate emotion of this enigmatic story and delightfully holds you there until you are as devastated as the characters themselves."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...
Senior, who directed The Overwhelming here two years ago to great acclaim, admirably brings a gimlet eye to the proceedings. Her smart trio of actors handles Rogers’s modern-life observations about air travel and cocktail parties with brio. And Weber, Roman and Vander Broek add tantalizing layers to their characters: Each of them, like all of us, wants to present themselves as free of guilt about what’s gone awry in their relationships with those around them, but each betrays their doubt."
ChicagoCritic
- Recommended
"...Without giving away any more secrets from the mystery, let me say that Madagascar is a gripping thriller about the affects of a disappearance by a family member that cripples all. At three different periods in time, three Americans find themselves alone in the hotel room they used often. They overlay time and space to unravel their mysterious story; secrets are revealed. The resolution of the mystery is worth the journey as Rogers’ story illuminates the uniqueness of his characters. You’d be hard pressed to find three finer, more heartfelt performances that presented by Roman, Vander Broek and Weber."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Highly Recommended
"...By seamlessly blending three different monologues, Rogers creates a dream-like aura of suspense. Under Kimberly Senior's adept direction, the trio of performances by the redoubtable Carmen Roman, Cora Vander Broek and Mick Weber are quietly shattering as they weave something fundamentally profound out of something lucid and elusive. Great theatre is about questions rather than answers, and "Madagascar" asks those questions in a moving way. This is a work that benefits from suspense and the unknown, and toward that end you must experience it for yourself to truly appreciate its magical qualities. The one element here that is no mystery is that Next Theatre has once again created a spellbinding work of art that is powerful and beguiling. Don't miss "Madagascar"."
Chicago Theater Beat
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Now in an absorbing but ultimately frustrating Midwest premiere, J.T. Rogers’ 2004 puzzle play employs three characters who deliver concurrent confessions in the same stripped-down hotel room overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome. They speak from different times and the subject of their unmotivated outpourings gradually becomes the strange vanishing of Gideon. A scion of wealth and privilege, this attractive young man went to Madagascar on a mission that may have ended in disappearance or death."
