Run The Beast Down presented by Strawdog Theatre Company at Online Stream

Chicago Tribune - Recommended

"...When the history of Chicago's virtual pandemic productions is written, Elly Green's creepy and timely little endeavor for the Strawdog Theatre Company will deserve a prominent spot. Unspooling in a series of single shots from a static camera--and seemingly filmed in someone's Chicago basement--Titas Halder's "Run the Beast Down" is a monologue tailor-made for these months and months of anxiety."

Windy City Times - Highly Recommended

"...Has Halder crafted an allegory of social breakdown ( cf. Rhinoceros ) or a grim reminder of nature's brutality ( cf. Watership Down )? Do his anthropomorphic manifestations reflect the literary device called magic realism, or hallucinations associated with insomnia-induced psychosis? Are the violent atrocities that Charlie describes actual or imaginary? More important, how do the events of the 1980s in the UK apply to us today, our own country ravaged by hostile factions? Whose side will we take?"

Chicago On Stage - Recommended

"...It's difficult to tell how much of what Charlie says is truth and how much is the product of his increasing schizophrenia, but Wallace is expressive, intense and exciting as he allows us to watch this slow breakdown, blending clearly real moments with fantastic descriptions that warp past and present and morph Charlie with the beast he fears. Director of Photography Kamille Dawkins and Green work together to take us on a journey deep inside a troubled mind, while Daniel Etti-Williams adds sounds both realistic and dreamlike. This is a production that manages to benefit from the pandemic's requirement of taking the art online."

NewCity Chicago - Recommended

"...In this digital setting, focus is placed squarely on Charlie alone, and he stares right into your very essence. Reciting Halder's work as though it were an epic poem put to stage, Wallace's face looms larger throughout the show until you can't help but stare right back with his eyes mere inches away. To be totally honest, in this COVID world, I was unnerved with an unmasked face being so close to mine, even on a screen-a reminder that the theater will shake us in ways we don't expect. Wallace shifts between characters easily and with nuance. Even his sneering fox lends itself more to the dramatic than the comedic. We see everyone as Charlie sees them, not as they or the world sees them."