Princess Ivona at Trap Door Theatre

Chicago Reader - Recommended

"...While rarely speaking, Ivona has an ironclad will and an unerring instinct to do the opposite of what is expected of her. She bewitches and confounds King Ignatius (Bill Gordon) and Queen Margaret (Manuela Rentea) while enraging the Lord Chamberlain (Kevin Webb) and Isobel (Cat Evans). Each has ambitions and schemes which Ivona upends by her arrival. She’s a chaos agent they all want to snuff out for individual motives, but every plot is a threat to all the others. It’s a mess and that’s the point."

Windy City Times - Recommended

"...Beacraft and Trap Door could have made their Princess Ivona revival even more gossipy by directly commenting on the lucrative grievance tour of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex against the British royal family. But instead, the title character's brief bit of truth-telling is zeroed in to make reviving this wacky tragedy of Princess Ivona into a timeless meditation on abusive power in any era."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended

"...Trap Door delivers a substantial piece of theater that is at once pungent social commentary and delightful entertainment."

Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended

"...If you met somebody you just didn't understand, would you take that as a challenge? Would you be able to define what it means to "win?" The people in Princess Ivona would. Written in 1938 by the Polish satirical novelist Witold Gombrowicz, Ivona, Princess of Burgundia, anticipated the absurdist dramas that would become more common in Eastern Europe following World War II. In this lean adaptation at Trap Door, directed by Jenny Beacraft, we see how the presence of a mostly non-verbal woman at the royal court draws out the insecurities of everyone around her, making her an object of hatred for doing literally nothing at all."

Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended

"...Princess Ivona inspires Trap Door Theatre to show us what it does best: Take a clever script and turn it into a carnival with exaggerated style and physical performance, while remaining true to the playwright's original concept. In this case, Jenny Beacraft directs playwright Witold Gombrowicz's 1935 tragicomedy, an anti-nationalist satire on class and identity, and embellishes it with an exuberant use of props, costumes and makeup. Beacraft, who grew up in Chicago, is now based in Barcelona; she has participated in several Trap Door international productions."

NewCity Chicago - Recommended

"...In "Princess Ivona," there is no hope. Not for the title character nor her royal antagonists. Don't expect the good guys to win-there are no good guys! It's the absurd wrapped in a colorful candy shell. But this is by design. Abandoning hope allows the true message to sink in, that of confronting the lust, greed, vice and corruption within the existing value system. In this regard, "Princess Ivona" is successful."