Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Austin Pendleton's direction goes much further than the Broadway production's — he treats this play as if it were something by Anton Chekhov. And that is greatly to Margulies' advantage, and ours."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...As the dutifully schematic story unfolds, though, it's clear that Margulies's real topic isn't the moral conundrums of frontline reporters. As always, he's mainly interested in anatomizing the domestic angst of the privileged class. Sally Murphy never develops much of an emotional arc for Sarah in her push-pull relationship with Randall Newsome's warm and vulnerable James. But as a middle-aged friend and his much younger paramour, Francis Guinan and Kristina Valada-Viars transcend the smug contrivances embedded in Margulies's writing."
Windy City Times - Recommended
"...Sarah's arguments for her devotion to duty are somewhat undermined by her speaking through a fog of painkillers for a large portion of the play, emphasizing Sally Murphy's spunky-little-girl mannerisms, but Margulies' dialectic loses none of its intelligence for being rendered with the careful attention to personal reflection characteristic of Pendleton's Chekhovian approach to his projects. With the current plethora of dramas relying on battlefront reports for their inspiration, an exploration of how those reports are obtained should provide intriguing conversation for audiences for whom war is a spectator sport."
Centerstage - Somewhat Recommended
"... Director Austin Pendleton carefully examines each nuanced moment of this moving and delicate exploration and for the most part his actors deliver impressively. But as the central character, Murphy’s stilted and breathy line deliveries cause much of the emotional power of the piece to be lost. In order for the dramatic decisions the characters make to affect the audience we have to be fully committed to the personalities of the decision-makers and that’s just not the case with Murphy. As a result this production fails to live up to its full potential."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...Austin Pendleton’s production is handsomely staged on a gorgeous, appropriately photorealistic loft-apartment set by Walt Spangler with attractive, interesting lighting design by Keith Parham. Yet two crucial casting choices keep us at a remove. The sparky Valada-Viars can’t quite conceal her own intelligence enough to sell Mandy’s guilelessness. More important, Murphy’s breathy, thrashing take on Sarah never suggests the confident adrenaline junkie we’re assured she used to be."
Chicago On the Aisle - Highly Recommended
"...director Austin Pendleton’s lean, driving approach trims the comedy as he ratchets up the tension. Pendleton’s laser focus is personified in Sally Murphy’s tightly coiled Sarah, whose compressed, expostulatory speech seems to require two breaths to get one sentence out. Murphy’s convalescing photographer is one obsessive woman, perhaps like any artist. Then again, the photographer is lucky to be alive. She was blown sky-high by a roadside bomb. Here, Sarah is also effectively shorn of her sense of humor beyond the sarcasm rooted in the playwright’s words. She is the alienated daughter of a rich father, and one suspects Pendleton sees her as prime candidate for psychoanalysis."
Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended
"...Austin Pendleton’s directing strikes just the right tone of realism and never allows the debates over moral issues to descend into preaching. Walt Spangler designed the wonderfully detailed loft set. Rachel Anne Healy designed the costumes, Keith Parham the lighting, and Josh Schmidt is responsible for the sound design and original music."
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...I had some problems with playwright Donald Marguiles’ script and Sally Murphy’s bland and too laid-back presentation of Sarah. Surly, an adrenaline junky like Sarah would be pacing about as she itched to get back to the action. Murphy plays Sarah too passive. I’d like to know more about why Sarah cheated on James and why he accepted her story without rage since his soul mate betrayed him. James took the news quite civilly."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Somewhat Recommended
"... As the foils whose conditionally happy marriage is the standard that Sarah intends to ignore, Francis Guinan and Kristina Valada-Viars are bracingly ordinary. Not so the elaborate treasure trove of a set by Walt Spangler that suggests all those theaters of war where Sarah performs like a trooper and to which she’ll soon return. As if we didn’t know--and far earlier than the author imagines."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Somewhat Recommended
"...Playwright Donald Margulies has imagined the relational conflict for frontline journalists. Margulies puts active people into a homebound situation and forces them to redefine themselves. Under the direction of Austin Pendleton, the situation definitely feels forced. It also seems stilted. Conversations feel rehearsed. A few times, during pivotal dialogue, non-speaking characters are milling around in the background like they’re bored."
Around The Town Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"... Directed by Austin Pendleton on a slick set by Walt Spangler filled with great “stuff”, I found myself wanting to get into this story, but with the problem in hearing the two lovers in confrontation, I know that focus was hard to keep. I struggled to hear every word and also see the action. Their loft apartment had lamps, but they left the lights off for a great part of the first act, so not only could I not hear them, it was difficult to see them."
Chicago Theater Beat - Highly Recommended
"... In the end, everyone in the foursome comes to their own conclusions about how to shape their own lives, and whether to record the torment of others’ from an intensely close perspective. Rather like war itself, the ending isn’t tidy. But it is heartbreakingly real."