Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Some of the acting here is quite astoundingly good. I suspect some of these actresses can't believe they're still doing this kind of thing — and that combined grit and resignation shows through here as never before. I can't recall how many times I've seen Hoerdemann play some perversely sexualized character, but I've never seen her do so with such angst and apt weariness. So it goes too with Dado, whose work is dark and relentless. Add in the fearless Nicole Wiesner, one of the play's many victims and another transgressive diva of the avant-garde whose work is acquiring a wholly fascinating sadness, and you have quite the hellish ensemble for a hellish play."
Centerstage - Highly Recommended
"... Exactly halfway through the play, just when the humdrum nastiness of the characters has begun to yield up flashes of their more sympathetic, vulnerable sides, something awful happens. And then, something much more awful happens. Without giving too much away, I can say that these central scenes are deliciously appalling. Schwab delivers stone cold bad news about humanity with a shocking jolt of pleasure, and the superb cast more than lives up to the demands of the script."
Chicago Stage Review - Highly Recommended
"... Together, this brilliant ensemble manages the impossible. They remarkably convey this deranged theatrical phenomenon by making the despicable darling, the repulsive captivating and infusing the unthinkable decadence with charming humor and genuine humanity. It takes beguiling intelligence to successfully maneuver the offensively peculiar insanity of Schwab’s writing and Trap Door once again maps the course, proceeds with full steam and creates a dazzling expedition into the bedlam. Complete with sexual assault, murder, cannibalism and lots of laughs; OVERWEIGHT, unimportant: MISSHAPE – A European Supper is one of the most recalcitrant plays that you will ever adore."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"... Trap Door’s excellently cast North American premiere, directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Yasen Peyankov, drips with the sort of European-style comedic nihilism that a play originally published in a collection titled The Feces Dramas calls for. The ensemble, which includes H.B. Ward as a misogynistic brute and Carolyn Hoerdemann as the village hooch, is unrestrained and delightfully over-the-top. Translated from German by Michael Mitchell, Schwab’s play benefits from Peyankov’s knowledge of how to toe the line between confrontational action and engaging ideas, so much so that watching a person get gnawed to death can be both grin-inducing and intellectually stimulating. It’s a refreshing and provocative example of capital-T theater: politically aggressive, razor sharp and thoroughly entertaining."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"... the play consists of the interactions of these different people, butting heads and trying todecide whatkindofpeople they are and what kind of society they live in and whathope there is for any of them. This tavern is a place where everyoneis damned and no onewants to accept it. It is a tavern where strangers are strange,where foreigners are foreign – where otherness is feared and despised. Itis a tavern where humans eat their gods. Moreover, it is beautiful, horrid, confusing, glorious theatre."
Around The Town Chicago - Recommended
"...While the content and the language of this play is not great, the actors are solid enough to make these somewhat flimsy characters take on true and real identities. Each has their own probelms and we , as an audience, can feel for them, or not! The overall production is well worth exploring for the theatrical experience. It is always a treat to see smaller companies, where budgets are almost nil take on major shows and do it with what is called “spit and cardboard”."
