Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...I think this already quite engrossing piece could have a future: the first thing to be sorted out by the creative team is whether or not they want it to be a musical. Certainly, the imaginative Bell has directed it like one, with apt staging nods on Lauren Nigri's backlot-like setting to classic Hollywood musicals, so that's probably the way to go. Thereafter, the piece could use much more urgency and pace and it also needs to lose some of the melodramatic paper-tiger villains in favor of the several well-rounded characters here, such as Haines' partner Jimmie Shields, nicely played by Kyle Patrick."
Chicago Reader - Recommended
"...The censorship regime that came under the Hays Code usurped everyone’s fun, turning the titans of their day into persecuted has-beens overnight. Punctuated with songs from the era, playwrights Barry Ball and Carl Menninger’s show (directed for Windy City Playhouse by David H. Bell) is a dazzling ode to keeping the flame alive even as the times conspire to put it out."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Adam Jennings, Trey DeLuna and Abby Lee win our support immediately as the trio of boon companions, although the heaviest lifting falls to Jennings' Billy and Lee's Lucille/Joan as they strive in vain to rescue their fragile comrade (played with Byronesque melancholy by DeLuna) from the recklessness that would prove his final undoing. They are assisted by a protean quintet portraying an abundance of peripheral aiders, abettors and adversaries. Director David H. Bell keeps a tight rein on the production's many moving parts spread over Windy City Playhouse's arena-sized storefront (including a spectacular beat-down choreographed by Max Fabian and lit in Caravaggio chiaroscuro by Anthony Forchielli) to deliver a bittersweet homage to deserving heroes in the long struggle for tolerance and compassion."
Around The Town Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...The ensemble does most of the heavy lifting in this show, handling most of the music/songs and a myriad of characters that enter into the story. They are: Adrian Irizarry, Ben Dow, Jonathan Connolly and Max Stewart. There were a few scenes where I could not keep up with the changes of characters, but as it turned out, they didn't alter the story at all. The show is directed by David H. Bell who has done some great things for this theater as well as many others in our Chicago area ( and others everywhere)."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...The performances in this production range from exceptional to very good, and the look and sound of the play are especially spot-on. This is true Hollywood, exquisitely captured onstage. However the sadness we're left with at the end of this play, and the theme of this story, shows how lives were, and still continue to be, tormented and destroyed by others. It's usually the work of ignorant, small-minded people. The narrow, thoughtless viewpoints imposed by folks wielding a little bit of power can truly harm. We're reminded by this play that, as Edmund Burke once said, "The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.""
Buzznews.net - Somewhat Recommended
"...Sons of Hollywood has some identity crises to work through before it is entirely successful. It has yet to find the right balance between the glib Hollywood gossip-page homage, which seems to project the lives of its real characters onto a silver screen version of themselves, and the more documentary style that delves more deeply into the wrenching emotional consequences of Hollywood's (and America's) gender politics. Sometimes the style puts the story at a distance, making it hard to connect to what is truly at stake. It also needs to figure out its musical backdrop."
Third Coast Review - Recommended
"...Director David Bell does a good job of eliciting great performances from a cast with actors playing multiple roles. A standout is Max Stewart as Navarro’s publicist and lover Herbert Howe. He also plays Louis B. Mayer who heartlessly terminates Navarro’s contract even though he was the one who made MGM big with his Latin Lover roles. His last role is as Navarro’s secretary Weber who knew that Navarro had company and got a bad vibe on the night his boss was bludgeoned to death by two itinerant hustlers."
Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended
"...Menninger brilliantly uses these actors, in addition to a clean-cut, perfectly poised ensemble with silky voices that welcome us into the songs and also portray several minor characters (including Louis B. Mayer), staging scenes all over Lauren Nigri’s lovely, multi-level set—a villa owned by Navarro and then later by Crawford—allowing sparse furnishings and Anthony Forchielli’s lighting to distinguish space. The sometimes too-abrupt scenes on occasion make the jump-cut scene changes a bit awkward, but overall Menninger manages to create a strong sense of place as well as period. (Sydney Moore’s perfect costuming certainly helps with the latter.)"
PicksInSix - Recommended
"...Directed by David H. Bell, "Sons of Hollywood" takes us behind the scenes of 1920's Hollywood and into the very personal lives of silent film stars Ramon Novarro and William Haines with their closest friends, enjoying the extravagance that fame can bring. And with that fame, comes power: apparently, the power to pursue whatever style of personal (and sexual) life that you'd like. But with the introduction of the Motion Picture Production Code, their glamorous lives begin to unravel as certain designated obscenities are squelched and perceived miscreants are plucked out of screenland."
NewCity Chicago - Recommended
"...Playwrights Barry Ball and Carl Menninger have brought their stories into the light with a show that's well-paced and enchanting, adding a third member to this friendship triangle, Joan Crawford (here mostly called by her birth name, Lucille LeSueur), who tries to keep "her boys" above water as their career arcs intersect-hers upward, theirs downward."
