Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...This is one of those shows where you find yourself resisting aspects of the structural premise but you become fascinated by all the things going on in the head of the writer - a playwright with whom, it mostly seems, Senior is aptly in sync. (Senior's own husband, Jack Magaw, designed the mostly workable set.)"
Chicago Sun Times - Somewhat Recommended
"...Gina Gionfriddo's "Rapture, Blister, Burn," now receiving its Chicago premiere at the Goodman Theatre, bears a scorching title. But the truth is, it is a glib (if frequently amusing), belief-stretching play about the evolution of feminism in recent decades. It is meant to be a comedy of manners, but it suffers from a major deficit: serious emotional shallowness. It lacks a real heart."
Chicago Reader - Somewhat Recommended
"...The humor and humanity are there, but the stakes never rise high enough. Don leaves Gwen for Catherine, then leaves Catherine just as easily as his wife. Within the realm of the play, adultery and lying are treated casually and without consequence. Part of the problem lies with all the feminist theory—it's interesting, but there's too much of it, and the characters, and what drives them, get lost."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Under Kimberly Senior's direction, the all-star cast assembled for this Goodman production are careful not to prejudice playgoers through exaggerated caricature, but instead allow each of us to revere or revile, guided by our individual experience. Ironically, even the overheard-in-the-lobby responses to Gionfriddo's manifesto defy predictability, with AARP-level spinsters cheering on young Avery's brutally unsentimental assessments, and males of all ages expressing sympathy for the unprepossessing Don-but isn't that what the freedom to follow your own bliss was always about?"
Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...If this artificial academic setting doesn’t offer many fresh arguments, it does restack them in interesting ways, with Gionfriddo contrasting Cathy and Gwen’s differing choices with the blithe lack of choices Alice saw for herself, and Avery representing a porn-friendly, hookup-culture third wave that baffles all three of her elders. Woditsch empathetically conveys Gwen’s bewildered grasping for where it all went wrong, and later for whether it actually did, while Coombs makes Catherine eminently relatable, both as the scholar and the “hot chick” wondering if she missed the greener grass."
Chicago On the Aisle - Recommended
"...The setup smacks of sitcom, and it's evidently beyond the redemptive touch of director Kimberly Senior. Moreover, in its pendulum swings between women's liberation lectures and domestic crisis, the play veers toward a sort of wry talkiness. It is at least relieved by the riotous interjections of pragmatic, smart-alecky, sexually sprung Avery (played with disarming vitality by Cassidy Slaughter-Mason) on the one hand and, on the other, the wit and seasoned honesty of Catherine's mother Alice (the glowing, comically precise Mary Ann Thebus). Since Catherine's class of two students meets in Alice's living room, ever-attentive Mom sometimes sits in and sometimes just serves a refreshing cocktail."
Stage and Cinema - Not Recommended
"...Freud's enduring question persists: "What do women want?" Gina Gionfriddo's aggressively hip drama, now in an equally frenetic staging by Kimberly Senior, offers a Cosmo-cute depiction of the perils and promises of feminism. It focuses like a lame laser on the (supposedly) only choices facing its female characters-college and a career or love, marriage and kids. If that sounds simplistic, welcome to Rapture, Blister, Burn."
ChicagoCritic - Somewhat Recommended
"...Playwright Gina Gionfriddo has concocted a play designed to be a comedy of manners with a feminist edge but it plays out as a shallow drama to facilitate Gionfriddo’s diatribe on the changes in feminist beliefs in the 21st Century. Add Catherine’s mother Alice (Mary Ann Thebus) as the voice of the per-feminist generation and the college student Avery (Cassidy Slaughter-Mason), the foul-mouthed youngster with much wisdom and this work stretches credulity. It seems that the two 40somethings each are so dissatisfied with their lives that they agree to change places. Really? Gwen wants to move to NYC with her show tune loving teenage son and Catherine wants to settle down with a lover – Don while caring for her mother. It seems that the grass is greener on the other side of the street."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...The technical part of the production adds a great deal and one thing we get to see at The Goodman, in the Albert Theater (the larger stage) is great sets (Jack Magaw) that slide in and out on wheels, lighting (Jennifer Schriever) that is dazzling, sound and original music(Richard Woodbury) and costumes (Emily Rebholz) that complete the picture that is painted by these artists."
Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended
"...Trying to have it all, negotiating a balance between one’s ideals and reality, becomes the struggle that playwright Gina Gionfriddo explores in this brilliant play. Seen by some as an homage to Wendy Wasserstein’s “The Heidi Chronicles,” this play is unique, humorous and witty and offers many new, thought-provoking ideas. While audiences may label this beautifully acted, deftly directly comic drama as a feminist play, the truth is it’s really about both genders and the quest for getting everything life has to offer. These ladies may not be for burning, but they certainly do sizzle."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Recommended
"...Spectators of a certain age may leave the Goodman Theatre feeling they have heard all Gionfriddo's feminism exchanges before. Although the discourses may not be fresh or novel, they remain worth hearing, especially as laced with the playwright's comedy of manners humor, enriched by the first rate acting and staging. Ultimately, "Rapture, Blister, Burn" becomes an enjoyable refresher course in what all the excitement was about before those strident and combative last decades of the 20th century advanced to the mellower new millennium. The play's title comes from a line from a 1998 druggie love song composed by Courtney Love for the rock group Hole."
The Fourth Walsh - Highly Recommended
"...As a single gal of a certain age and very much attached to my beloved mother, I saw myself in this witty chick-flick of a play. It teases out embarrassing truths of the modern woman. And it forces us to face them! Luckily, we are cloaked in the anonymity of an audience member critiquing someone else's problem. The show has plenty to say about women! And Gionfriddo, Senior and the ensemble are the perfect dames to deliver the life lessons. Also, nod out to Set Designer Jack Magaw's slick homes. The scene transitions are smooth as the toy cluttered patio moves to the side and Thebus' elegant living room rolls out. It's all so cohesive... the set, the dialogue, the cast. It's easy to fall in love... with this show!"
Splash Magazine - Recommended
"...The structure is contrived a bit and the love-triangle lacks any heat right now, but it's the playful nature to this story which is keeping Rapture from drowning in its own existential contemplations. "Rapture" is both the perfect play for a fun "girl's night out", while also retaining an overall important message which is universal enough to appeal to pretty much anyone. Really it's just a fun night of theatre and one that you definitely won't regret seeing."
NewCity Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...Situation comedy, anyone? Fortunately, the humor is premium-grade sitcom material and many of the lines delivered by Avery and Catherine’s mom Alice (played with charming ditzy genius by Mary Ann Thebus) elicit an uproarious laugh track from the audience. And Jack Macgaw’s set offers its own razzle dazzle of moving scenery. But as soon as the laughter stops, the reality of convoluted characterizations sets in."
