Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"... In its best moments, "Eastland," the theatrically muddy but emotionally powerful new musical from the Lookingglass Theatre Company, focuses in on some of the reasons. As one of the wrenching songs by Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman notes, there were no rich or famous people on board the Eastland, just working-class folks, many making and laying cable. There was no assaulting iceberg to stir imaginations, just a fatal tip into the water. And whereas the bejeweled Titanic stirred the hearts and romanticizing printing presses of the Anglo-American media complex, the prosaic "Eastland" merely toppled into a filthy Chicago River, collateral human damage in a rough-and-tumble and chaotically expanding city."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...With its seamlessly meshed book and lyrics by Andrew White, music by Ben Sussman and Andre Pluess, and direction by Amanda Dehnert, this is a haunted and haunting show. Born out of early 20th century Chicago history, it might be viewed as the watery companion piece to Lookingglass’ earlier production about the Great Chicago Fire. But it is far more than that."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Director Amanda Dehnert and her crack creative team synthesize music, poetry, circus arts, and imaginative design to immerse the audience in the world of the Eastland's doomed passengers. White's libretto is set to an evocative string-band score by Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman, and the 12-person ensemble of actor-musicians is uniformly excellent. Local folk-music icon Michael Barrow Smith and aerialist Doug Hara make especially strong impressions, Smith as the ship's captain and Hara as a "human frog" who dives to save lives and recover bodies. This is first-rate theatrical storytelling."
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...Director Amanda Dehnert and scenic designer Dan Ostling make remarkable use of the Lookingglass space to capture the catastrophe’s impact. The production begins in an intimate tent where we meet the play’s focal points: a schoolgirl survivor (Claire Wellin), an unhappy housewife (Monica West) looking for her lost son, and an escape artist who helps retrieve bodies (Doug Hara). As the characters board the boat, the tent creates a sense of comfort, which is broken when the ship capsizes and the tent walls collapse to reveal an expanse of scaffolding, creating the illusion of an underwater vessel."
Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended
"...Eastland is one of those rare theatrical experiences that is wholly satisfying in its stagecraft, its performances, and its storytelling. It’s the kind of production that makes Lookingglass such a special company. The final heartbreaking moments of the show had spectators tearing up. The two women sitting next to me were so overcome they couldn’t even applaud at the curtain call."
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...The sad haunting tone of the folk styled music and the seriously generous use of sung dialogue in a pure operetta motif was skillfully performed giving just the proper tone to this magnificent work. This is quintessential Chicago story told with class in a dynamic trade mark Lookingglass style. The production values and the terrific music and singing make Eastland a “must seeing” show."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended
"... Lookingglass Theatre Company, which has already commemorated our Great Fire of 1871, now brings big-hearted compassion to this river tragedy. As with that sprawling horror, this world premiere by Lookingglass artistic director Andrew White, with a folk-flavored score by Ben Sussman and Andrew Pluess, humanizes the event by concentrating on three blue-collar lives caught up in the fatal foundering. A dozen actor/singer/performers suggest the sheer weight of life that turned to death in an instant. It’s performed under a huge Chautauqua-like tent (with the audience in pews), whose covering will be stripped away to suggest the ship’s bare superstructure."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...Playwright Andrew White fictionalizes the facts to pull us in hook, line and sinker. White engages with believable characters that struggle with life before and during the incident. As a woman treads water, she has a flashback to a chance meeting of a soulmate. A young girl waits to be rescued and remembers her father teaching her to swim. A self-proclaimed frogman competes with Houdini’s underwater record as he recovers bodies. An undertaker arrives on the scene and is overwhelmed by death. WOW! These are powerful glimpses at people reacting to life. Under the expert direction of Amanda Dehnert, the ensemble is sublime. They captivate with authenticity. There is a real humanity that tethers me to their circumstance. I know, care and worry about these characters. The actors are exceptional. And they are not just acting. They sing and play instruments."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...What we experience during this 90 minutes of history and mystical folk music is a story that many Chicagoans are not even aware of. People who had traveled from other parts of the world to begin a new life in Chicago, many of whom came to work at The Hawthorn Plant of Western Electric ( the Telephone was still new), perished in what was to have been a day out with the family. The heavier weight of the ship and the extra large crowd caused the ship to tilt and tilt until it turned over on its side, tossing the passengers into the depths of the river, where entire famil;ies perished."
Huffington Post - Highly Recommended
"...White's deliberately disorienting book violently shifts between character backstory and tragedy, keeping you on edge, and director Amanda Dehnert establishes a communal, ghostly tone. And, without giving too much away, Dan Ostling's scenic design provides a perfectly timed visual surprise that simply takes your breath away, elevating the show from exquisite to extraordinary."
