Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...I saw two different directorial takes on this play in the aughts. Parson, though, is the first I’ve seen to foreground the twinkling humor in “Radio Golf,” to let it breathe, to give it a beating heart, to embrace its life force. He’s a director who always insists on calamitously high stakes, which is true here although often overlooked with Wilson, but what will stick with you is just how relaxed you will feel watching the show, safe in the company of some masterful actors who understand that you have to live, you have to be believed, before you can teach."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"..."Radio Golf" is the late Wilson's final play, and the last installment in his century-spanning Pittsburgh Cycle. While it's not in the upper echelons of his catalogue - Olympian heights that very few (if any) American playwrights have matched - it still resonates with same anger, love and cynical humor that make his plays seem more like sacred texts than play scripts. Director Ron OJ Parson is an experienced interpreter of Wilson's chronicles of African-American life, and this production is yet another vibrant, rough-hewn gem."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Radio Golf feels like home to anyone who has had the pleasure of being intimately involved in the African-American experience, and welcomes the rest of America to peer through the window, feel the warmth and also perhaps catch a glimpse their own reflection."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...I've always viewed Radio Golf-the last part of August Wilson's epic Century Cycle-mostly as a comedy with a hopeful ending. It's the play in which Black entrepreneurs in 1990s Pittsburgh finally achieve political and financial clout while also reconnecting with their cultural and personal roots in the old Hill District ghetto. This sober and angry new production by master director Ron OJ Parson and a splendid cast shows me how wrong I've been."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...Gilmore and Meredith camaraderie with one another is priceless, ranging from a comfortable business relationship to proving their case to why they think their way is best to improve the community. The community spokesmen of Alfred and Alfred, James T. Alfred and Alfred H. Wilson were truly inspiring in their roles as the less influent duo of the group whose wisdom speaks volume in the Black Community."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...The Court Theatre opens its 64th season with “Radio Golf” by August Wilson; the tenth and final play in Wilson’s American Century Cycle. This play was completed only a few month’s before Wilson’s death in 2005, and has been described by some, as a play that Wilson rushed to completion and somehow is thinner than his other works. The Court Theatre’s production under the superb direction of Ron OJ Parson contravenes that misguided impression and reveals the brilliance of this work; August Wilson would be proud."
WTTW - Highly Recommended
"...The classic Wilson themes are all in place here: how the deck is stacked against the race, even once a certain level of success has been achieved; how money corrupts absolutely; how taking the moral stand involves major sacrifice; how wisdom is accrued through something far different than higher education."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...Set in the ’90s, “Radio Golf” does not have that issue, and more importantly, Wilson tackles themes – urban renewal, income inequality, and political ascendancy – that are just as (if not more) relevant 13 years after he wrote the play. After all, in being staged at Court Theatre, this production is mere miles away from city neighborhoods with all of the qualities Wilson so astutely observes: entrenched poverty; dilapidated housing; soaring inequality; and elected political leaders who promise that the very neoliberal forces that created such inequities will also rescue the community. Is Wilks’ grand Hill District development any different than the Obama Presidential Library? I don’t think so, and thanks to the expert direction of Parsons and a technically superb creative team (Jack Magaw’s scenic design and Rachel Anne Healy’s costume design are especially virtuosic), you can see such issues brought to vivid life on the stage."
Chicago Theater and Arts - Highly Recommended
"...This is just great theater skillfully written by August Wilson, a Pittsburgh native who is a master of believable dialogue, produced by a talented cast and production staff led by Charles Newell, Artistic Director Marilyn F. Vitale and Executive Director Angel Ysaguirre.. You can’t get much better than this."
Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended
"...I’ve seen many other productions of Wilson’s work, often at the Goodman, and this Radio Golf stands with the finest of them. Wilks’ slow comprehension of his connection to the past and Hicks’ abandonment of it to suit his own advancement make for provocative theatre. We are clearly on Wilks’ side in all of this, but the price he pays is high: as he complains at one point, the powers that be keep “moving the edge” of the circle he finds himself in so that he—and by inference all black men—cannot maintain balance."
PicksInSix - Highly Recommended
"...An inspiring, must-see… A captivated audience rose to their feet on opening night of Court Theatre’s Radio Golf to applaud a powerful cast and resonating performance. The production explores pressing societal issues at the intersections of race, politics, and morality with engaging dialogue, deep humanity, and some hearty laughs. An inspiring, must-see for Chicagoans."
Picture This Post - Highly Recommended
"...There is much talk of how the Black community is being impacted by the ever shifting landscape where the center doesn't hold. It's Wilk's journey to find his own center in his changing interior landscape that makes this play, in this writer's opinion, a classic for the ages."
NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...August Wilson, beyond anything else, told stories. His finest tools, that keyed-in rhythm and deep understanding of people—what we do, what we are capable of, what we are—underscored and heightened each other, building his plays up to modern myth: bombastic and subtle. Characters throw stories back and forth, always privy to the facts of narrative and self: I don’t exist without the story I tell. I mean, my body is here and I can speak to you. But who am I without the memories of my sister or the family cats or walking across the golf courses at midnight? It was so green in the day, then so blue in the dark."
