Chicago Tribune
- Highly Recommended
"...Charles Johnson's celebrated National Book Award-winning 1990 novel, "Middle Passage," reconfigured classic allegorical stories of 19th-century seafaring life, a la Herman Melville, through the complex late-20th-century lenses of race, class and gender. That may sound like heavy going, but Johnson's book is also a ripping yarn, a thrilling bildungsroman and rich in comic detail, with a thread of supernatural dread woven deep in its fabric. In short: It bursts with theatrical possibilities."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...It has taken 10 years for Ilesa Duncan and David Barr III to adapt MacArthur Fellow Charles R. Johnson's "Middle Passage" - the 1990 National Book Award winner for fiction - for the stage. But the result of their labors - Pegasus Theatre Chicago's mightily impressive, wholly engrossing world premiere of "Rutherford's Travels" - is indisputable evidence that their time was well spent."
Chicago Reader
- Recommended
"...Johnson's tale echoes Poe, Melville, Conrad, and a host of others, but what makes his work extraordinary is how well he balances the protagonist's personal journey with a searing indictment of the peculiar institution and the slave trade. Likewise, in translating the story from page to stage for Pegasus Theatre, Duncan and Barr succeed in giving us a ripping yarn that makes us feel-and reflect."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Though Pegasus Theatre's cramped rental quarters at Chicago Dramatists cannot quite contain the spectacle this literary genre demands, Barr and Duncan's text is exemplary in its efficiency. Likewise praiseworthy is the ensemble led by Breon Arzell as the picaresque Rutherford (also featuring memorable character work by Ron Quade, Nelson Rodriguez, Gary Houston and newcomer Naima Hebrail Kidjo). When a play needs nothing more than a bigger room and budget, its future is auspicious."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...Some of Johnson’s authorial flourishes can feel glossed over in the rush to fit his brief but eventful 200 pages into two and a half hours onstage. But Pegasus’s production does capture, both in the script and in Arzell’s gently layered performance, the unique isolation of Rutherford’s situation, trying to find the best way forward in his travels while on no one’s side but his own."
ChicagoCritic
- Recommended
"...Breon Arzell, as Rutherford, follows up his last impressive performance at Raven Theatre in The Scottsboro Boys with an equally impressive performance here. Narrating most of the story (the novel is written as his journals), Arzell manages to keep up the energy and excitement with charm and humor. Andrew Malone, another star from The Scottsboro Boys, is also present here, although (regrettably) in a only a few minor roles, as Rutherford's brother, Jackson, and the leader apparent of the slaves, Ngonyama; nevertheless, he is a pleasure to see again, too."
The Fourth Walsh
- Somewhat Recommended
"...RUTHERFORD'S TRAVELS captures my interest but not my emotional investment. In their effort to honor Johnson's novel, Duncan and Barr's play gets bogged down in the detail. The over-complicated storytelling makes me feel like I'm cramming for a Rutherford exam. A few key points referenced in the second half have me scratching my head wondering how did I miss that in the first half. The story is powerful. The play lacks that same potency. The ending even has a hurried, unfinished feel. Until the stage goes black, I'm not certain it is over. RUTHERFORD TRAVELS would be better served to pare down the baggage for a smoother sail."
Chicago Theater Beat
- Somewhat Recommended
"...However, with all this talented support, I never connected with the lead character. I didn’t feel his worries, his fears, his confusion, his passion. It may have been that he was still feeling the weight of the massive amount of dialogue he carries. I’m hoping that, as those words become more and more Rutherford’s words rather than the actor’s, he’ll embody the emotions and the feelings will come through as well."
Splash Magazine
- Highly Recommended
"...This is a strong, strong production, though the costuming and set design is a trifle basic. There are also a few sections where so many people are speaking or making noise at once that the main thread of the narrative is lost, but on the whole it is superb and enjoyable for anyone. Go see it."
NewCity Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Director Ilesa Duncan and her design team create a fully-realized nautical world, capturing the ocean’s mystical serenity as well as its raging violence. Under Duncan’s direction, the complex and layered narrative—featuring a mutinous crew, rebellious captives and a mysterious African artifact—flies along like a clipper ship under full sail."
