Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...Yes, "Romance" is funny. Yes, it's audacious. Yes, it's produced at a high level matching the density of the writing. But play and production veer away from their own incisiveness like potential whistle-blowers who can't quite let go of their paychecks."
Daily Herald - Recommended
"...this defiantly politically incorrect play is funny. Unabashedly ecumenical in its gleeful skewering of Jews and Christians, judges and chiropractors, blacks and homosexuals, its distrib-utes its insults equally among reli-gious and ethnic groups. And while it doesn’t have the bite that characterizes the playwright’s best work, “Romance” boasts an able cast and one crackling scene — expertly played by David Pasquesi and Christian Stolte — whose bark and snarl recalls vintage Ma-met."
SouthtownStar - Not Recommended
"...Has David Mamet lost his touch? It sure looks that way from his play "Romance," in its Chicago premiere at the Goodman Theatre. This is such a trivial piece of nonsensical farce that if it had been written by any other playwright, I doubt a theater of Goodman's caliber would have mounted it."
Chicago Reader - Not Recommended
"...Nothing in this 90-minute one-act matches the raunchy fun or satiric sting of South Park or Family Guy. And Mamet's intricate sentence structures and stuttering rhythms come off more as self-parody than style."
Windy City Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...director Pam MacKinnon’s cast cares about its play, even if Mamet doesn’t. Matt DeCaro, stepping in for John Mahoney, along with Steve Pickering, David Pasquesi, Christian Stolte, and Ron OJ Parson, as well as youngsters John LaGuardia and Matthew Krause, keep the adrenaline forthcoming and the delivery in control. But despite Romance’s claim to be a commentary on the Middle East situation, the impression it leaves is that of off-duty actors having bawdy fun with an I Love Lucy-era screwball comedy."
Chicago Free Press - Somewhat Recommended
"...Basically, director Pam MacKinnon tries to get out of the way of the onslaught of smug obfuscation, daffy confessions, scatological insults, nonsequiturs, ethic slurs and gay stereotypes. Unfortunately, the audience cannot."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...While the deeply stupid humor sometimes veers strangely toward the middlebrow (is another lost contact lens bit necessary?), the social satire doesn’t really work (any comment on sexuality in macho bureaucracies was lost on us) and the text descends into undisciplined, un–Mamet-like chaos, it’s still a ball. Being offended shouldn’t be this entertaining."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"... Mamet’s screwball comedy vividly shows us that we must solve our differences at home before we can tackle international problems. Mamet takes no prisoners in his no-holds-bared farce. This is a brilliant work."
