Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Letts is clearly using the bugs as a metaphor for various governmental misdeeds. But in style, the piece is not unlike “Killer Joe” in the blending of black comedy and extreme violence. It's just that “Bug” has a sci-fi tilt; you might think of it as Sam Shepard meets David Cronenberg."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Directors Kimberly Senior and Jack Magaw make a character of the scuzzy motel room where Gulf War I vet Peter opens the heart and infests the mind of a grieving, hard-drinking waitress named Agnes. Jacqueline Grandt initially feels a tad mannered as Agnes, but once Andrew Jessop's tensile Peter gets tangled up in her sheets and soul, the show becomes a full-throttle exploration of how loneliness, loss, and poverty can turn a healing relationship into a co-dependent hell."
Examiner - Highly Recommended
"...Directed by Kimberly Senior and Jack MacGaw, Bug is absolutely sick. And by sick we mean fantastic, in the most superlatively perverse possible sense. The story is, as Letts understatedly put it in an interview earlier this year, “a strong cup of coffee.” It definitely isn’t for those who prefer gentle romantic comedies or, for that matter, any sort of comedy wherein the protagonists are not covered with blood and gouging clawing their own skin off in a sort of do-it-yourself attempt at delousing by Act II."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Co-directors Kimberly Senior and Jack Magaw have forged an empathetic production tailored to Redtwist's elbow-to-elbow space, assisted by the conviction brought by Andrew Jessop and Jacqueline Grandt to their respective roles. A precisely-timed technical score eases us slowly into a bunker-mentality where the hum of traffic on the highway outside fades into the staccato report of helicopter blades, where domestic appliances operate of their own volition and outsiders assume suddenly sinister aspects. By the time we witness the room's inhabitants, scarred by stigmata, cowering in their tinfoil-and-flystrip fortress against what has become an exhaustive campaign of diabolical proportions, the irrevocable logic of their plight is as transparent as it is horrifying."
Talkin Broadway - Recommended
"...When you get an opportunity to see such capable actors perform for just 70 (or so) audience members at a time, you don't ever want to pass it up. With Bug, though, it's really the best way to experience this play in the (bug-infested) flesh."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...The play itself is a frightening, sad meditation about drug abuse masquerading as a paranoid thriller. Gulf War I veteran Peter (Jessop) natters on about biochips and surveillance, and he drops a suggestion that he might be Oklahoma City’s infamous John Doe #2, but he and lonely Agnes (Grandt) wouldn’t be cooking up these elaborate conspiracy theories if they weren’t also cooking fearsome quantities of coke and meth."
Chicago Theatre Addict - Highly Recommended
"...Directors and designers Kimberly Senior and Jack Magaw transform Redtwist’s storefront space into a seedy rural Oklahoma motel. The audience flanks the sides of the motel room. I sat right next to the bathroom, where some very key scenes played out just feet away from me in graphic detail. Stage blood may have gotten spit on me. It was disgusting and awesome. Live theatre, baby!"
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...The cast, Jacqueline Grandt and Andrew Jessop in particular, try to make something of this material but their best efforts don’t solve the script’s problems. Thankfully, they didn’t do the shameful nude scenes like other productions. Unfortunately, the Redtwist Theatre’s production of Bug never gets weird enough into the world of mental illness necessary to affect us deeply."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Recommended
"...
A woman battles loneliness. A man fights to be free. They both want to escape the past. A crackpipe brings them together. Two people find love in a flea-bitten motel. Redtwist Theatre presents BUG. Agnes' life sucks! Her abusive ex has been paroled. Her son has been missing for ten years. Her home is a motel room. When her waitress pal brings over a vile of coke and a quirky guy, the partying leads to a sleepover. Peter awkwardly charms Agnes into shacking up. Their bliss is cut short by domestic disturbances. Bugs infest the room. As they frantically try to exterminate the problem, more unwanted creatures arrive! Their past infiltrates their present. The pests won't leave them alone. BUG gets under the skin with a spiraling-out-of-control intensity!"
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...What you will witness in viewing this production is the cleverness of Tracy Lettsin writing this contrived ant-government piece ( or is it?) and a solid cast of players who make the action come alive in one of the smallest of our Chicago theaters. Note: this is an open seating production and if you opt to sit in the single row beneath the Motel window facing the bed, be prepared to stay alert at all times, you will be in the action, but the actors will not even acknowledge your presence- just go with it. As I said earlier, this is a very small space and the set is filled with props and furniture ( Jenny Pinson) and unlike many plays, the entire audience must clear the motel room during intermission so maid service can come in and change the sheets and stuff ( probably a union thing) and then you will be led back in. Please note, that during this production, the theater will only have one available bathroom, so intermission might be just a few minutes longer."
Chicago Theater Beat - Recommended
"...Though Redtwist’s staging of Bug fails to thrill and delight to the level of other productions of Letts’ work, it’s still a very entertaining piece of theatre. Grandt’s electric performance alone is worth the ticket price. If you’re a fan of the darker side of theatre, you’ll enjoy Bug."