Chicago Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...I've long had enormous respect for O'Donnell's music, which has one foot in experimental composition and another in the Americana and parlor music tradition of the 19th century, ascendedent here. He also is a remarkable percussionist. But this is a heavy assignment (O'Donnell directed the show, composed the score and leads the band), and he could have used an outside eye that might have found more light and shade to cut the pervasive tone of period earnestness. That tone tends to wash over a laudably ambitious piece that now needs more contrast, clarity and heart."
Chicago Reader - Not Recommended
"...Kevin O'Donnell's folk-ballad song cycle spans 600 years of American history, but musically it hardly budges an inch. Whether telling the story of star-crossed 15th-century Cree lovers, unheralded female soldiers of the American Revolution, or folk icons like John Henry and Casey Jones, O'Donnell funnels somber melodies through numbingly similar tempos; after 20 minutes of this nearly two-hour premiere for House Theatre, you've heard most everything you're going to hear, twice."
Time Out Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...The collection suggests what might be left on the cutting-room floor if Sufjan Stevens actually completed his Fifty States Project, or a Decemberists show with a less adventurous vocabulary. Only occasionally does the evening hit the right combination of rousing storytelling and musical drive, as in the John Brown tale "For and Against," which closes Act I. O'Donnell, in his first outing at a piece's helm, has admirable ambition and musical chops. But the concept needs a bit more tending."
ShowBizChicago - Recommended
"...The songs are all about America in one way or another and are performed in chronological order, in that the history becomes more recent as the show continues. However, covering such a large land with such a long history the 19 songs are a little short on continuity. When put together, the score doesn't really feel like a flowing a history, but more a hodgepodge of selected stories from American history textbooks and folk songs. That is not so much a criticism as an observation, though, and I think at the heart of the production is the idea that this is a country shaped by many different people of many different backgrounds. Whether their names end up emblazoned on a monument in the nation's capital, their legend is passed down over time through song, or their body was laid in the potter's field, they've left a story worth tilling up and retelling."
Stage and Cinema - Not Recommended
"...There is historical chronology to the tunes in Ploughed Under, but it is the baffling content which makes me wonder what the job of a dramaturg is supposed to be, as this production has not one but two - Chad Kenward and Dixie Belinda Uffelman (who has a US History degree)."
ChicagoCritic - Not Recommended
"...I mean, nobody's going to fault O'Donnell for denouncing America's admittedly conflicted and violent past-but these days it's about as morally provocative as opposing drug pedaling to children or statutory rape. You'll note that copies of the show's lyrics are conveniently (and conspicuously) provided during the show. Trust me, it's for the best, given that the audience isn't so much being sung to as lectured at. When it works, Ploughed Under manages to scrape by with subtle invocations of, say, Irving Berling's patriotic Americana. But on the whole it just lands premature."
