Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...Eclipse has come up with quite a decent and well-paced little revival of one of Gilman's best plays. "Spinning Into Butter" is likely to snag renewed attention for this fine Chicago writer once the forthcoming movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Miranda Richardson finally gets released. And this is a good chance to see the source play — produced with integrity and a good deal of truth."
Chicago Sun Times
- Recommended
"...In her complex drama, "Spinning Into Butter," playwright Rebecca Gilman takes a brave step toward challenging racial attitudes and political correctness. Though the play addresses large, troublesome questions, it is through its probing of the subtler forms of racism displayed in language and gesture that Gilman captures the bigger picture that involves every last one of us."
Daily Herald
- Highly Recommended
"...In "Spinning Into Butter," Rebecca Gilman forces us to confront some ugly truths.
That's what makes this dark, unflinching comedy about a racial incident at a small Vermont college such provocative, albeit unsettling, theater."
SouthtownStar
- Highly Recommended
"...As directed by Amish Jethmalani, and with strong ensemble performances, it is even better than when it premiered at Chicago's Goodman Theatre in 1999. It packs a more powerful wallop this time around because of the intimacy of its staging in Victory Gardens' tiny upstairs space. In this very intimate setting, where audience members can almost touch the actors, the production is more intense and dramatic."
Chicago Reader
- Recommended
"...In this Eclipse production Kerry Richlan makes the conflicted college dean at the story's center, who's trying to deal with the needs of minority students, seem both sympathetic and kind despite what she says. And the play's helped considerably by Anish Jethmalani's sensitive direction, which makes it engaging as well as claustrophobic and disturbing."
Windy City Times
- Recommended
"...Briskly directed by Anish Jethmalani for the Eclipse Theatre Company, Spinning Into Butter is a brutal expose of the heart’s hidden recesses and the sort of attitudes and feelings that decent, self-aware people spend a lifetime trying to squelch and deny they have."
Gay Chicago Magazine
- Recommended
"...When it first premiered in 1999, Rebecca Gilman’s thesis on race earned her a place in the American Theatre as a playwright willing to take risks with her subject material. With “Spinning Into Butter,” Gilman presents an evenly weighted discussion around racial attitudes and political correctness. Seven years later, the issues are still as pertinent as ever, and Eclipse Theatre’s evenly tempered, well-measured production under Anish Jethmalani’s direction gives justice to Gilman’s material."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...The rest of Jethmalani’s production is perfectly solid, even if the cast struggles to sell implausible plot elements like grown-ups hiding under desks, and obvious metaphors (like the titular one about Little Black Sambo). And with Richlan at its center, Eclipse nearly eclipses the play’s nearsighted flaws."
ChicagoCritic
- Highly Recommended
"...Gilman offers hope that through honest, uninhibited dialogue, racism can be solved, one person at a time. This intelligent play is driven home with powerful acting from Kerry Richlan and Robert McLean with strong efforts from Cheri Chenoweth and Larry Baldacci. Kevin Scott’s stone-walled and multi-windowed set aptly depicts the classic WASP New England college."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Highly Recommended
"...Eclipse's stunning production, under Artistic Director Anish Jethmalani's honest guidance, is a frequently funny and searing triumph. Kerry Richlan makes a rich and complex examination of Sarah's professional and personal catharsis. Larry Baldacci's priggish and patronizing "Old World manner" as Dean Strauss perfectly contrasts with Richlan's earnest liberal fervor and Cheri Chenoweth's "by the numbers" bureaucracy as Dean Kenney."
