Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...Playwright Margaret Lewis (who now writes under the moniker M.E.H. Lewis) has built a body of work that throbs with the unresolved sorrows and sins of historical atrocities. In the past, she's tackled the legacy of apartheid in "Burying the Bones" and slavery in "Creole." Now in her world premiere at Chicago Dramatists, "Freshly Fallen Snow," she looks at two different wars World War II and the Iraq War-- through the lens of medical ethics, with intriguing but also frustrating results."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Neuroscientist Jane Smith has developed a drug that she believes will erase painful memories. She's desperate to give a dose to A.J., a traumatized Iraq War veteran forcibly enrolled in Smith's clinical trial, who insists that her survival depends on retaining her worst recollections. Smith also hopes the drug will help her mother, who lived through the Allied bombings of Dresden during World War II and relives that horror daily."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Audiences expecting a science-fiction thriller with mad doctors and big needles will be disappointed to learn that Lewis' argument is not one of medical ethics, but of personal responsibility. Many details of the set-up need further clarification—the circumstances dictating an active-duty military subject's participation in the experimental program, for example—but once Ann Whitney's flinty Clothilde and Kelly O'Sullivan's scrappy AJ dig in their heels to reject the whitewashing of history, regardless of its scope, we eagerly anticipate answers to the mystery of the burdens they have adopted and their willingness to shoulder them. We get them—but not until we have been led through a labyrinth of discoveries (and a few red herrings, too, so stay alert even after you think you've guessed the secret) that keep our loyalties shifting right up to the final moments."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Lewis’s plot relies on an audience that doesn’t ask questions. Why can’t the military find a test subject who actually wants the procedure? Why would A.J. be forced to undergo an experimental drug treatment rather than just being sent to therapy? Despite the sharp ensemble, it’s difficult to connect with material that has so many holes in its logic."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...Meghan Beals McCarthy’s direction keeps the action flowing smoothly between 1945 Dresden and 2002 Baghdad, and the doctor’s University office and her home kitchen. The ensemble gamely switch characters—the believability of place and time are never an issue. McCarthy does need to create more nuance for her actors: for example, the doctor magically handles a boiling hot teapot without scalding herself. Overall, the ensemble interludes do not intrude, but reflect the sometimes chaotic chorus of interior life. Abu Ansari and Mildred Marie Langford do well in a number of roles, but Michael McKeogh shines as a kindly doctor who must keep hidden from the Nazis."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"... O’ Sullivan plays the butch soldier struggling to be a soldier in a man’s army quite naturally while Ann Whitney,sporting a slight German accent, exudes deeply haunting memories with a child-like sparkle thatsent shivers down by back. These two performances anchored the well cast production. Playwright Lewis puts a human face on thecontradictions facing scientists as they treat emotional scares from memories. This is a cautionary tale that resonates today as actualscientificresearch on editing memories is taking place. Society must decide the ultimate value of such science since editing memory can also edit whatit meanstobe human. Freshly Fallen Snow is a tightly drawn world premiere thatdeserves an audience."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"... There is no doubt that Chicago Dramatists IS “the playwrights’ theatre”, giving us some of the meatiest of theatrical productions, on a tiny stage in an intimate theater, allowing audiences to truly feel that they have broken through the fourth wall. There current production, a world premiere, ” Freshly Fallen Snow” written by M.E.H. Lewis, one of their resident playwrights is a taught story smoothly directed by Meghan Beals McCarthy, that tells us a story involving memories, and a scientist, Jane Smith ( the lovely Kristen D’Aurelio, who gives us a powerhouse performance) who is pioneering a new procedure that will change the memories of those who have memory disorders. While she claims that her purpose is to help the world, we find that deep down, her research is motivated by her mother ( a warm, tender performance by veteran Ann Whitney) who has many sleepless nights due to memories that haunt her from her early years of growing up in Germany during the second world war."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"... Freshly Fallen Snow at Chicago Dramatists is definitely a show not to miss. Beautifully conflicted, it will force you to think about how much of you are your memories, and what would happen if they disappeared."