The Astronaut's Birthday Reviews

Chicago Tribune - Recommended

"...It’s all quite hypnotic, in its way, although the laconic, smoky narration from Tony Fitzpatrick has a way of getting stuck in repetitive rhythms and falling off at the end of sentences, which, for all of its Chicago cool, doesn’t exactly fit with rockets and robots. The piece also has a habit of narrating you what you are about to see, followed by the moment when you see it unfold, slowly, on all those projectors. It would be better by far if some of the images themselves carried more of the narrative weight."

Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended

"...This is the great achievement of Frank Maugeri, Redmoon's artistic director and resident genius. With his small army of collaborators (many of them veterans of his creative madness, others gifted students at Columbia College) Maugeri has devised an essentially low-tech but immensely complex work with high-tech impact -- one that plays out on the vast wall of 18 windows comprising the MCA's facade."

Chicago Stage Review - Highly Recommended

"...There are so many reasons to love Redmoon Theater and The Astronaut’s Birthday is another one to add to that long list. It offers grand and glorious Give-A-Show Projector storytelling to Chicago’s children of all ages."

Time Out Chicago - Recommended

"... A giant orb crashes to Earth and begins emitting a message, “Send the one with the matching orb.” This turns out to be a marble owned by an elevator operator. Heeding the orb’s summons, the U.S. government rockets him into space, with his adoring young daughter stowing away in his suitcase. They wind up on a distant planet inhabited by killer robots and a creepy floating eyeball who plans to take over the universe by harvesting humans’ thirst for power. But the little girl’s quasi-Buddhist denunciation of worldly desires saves the day. It’s ponderous and barely coherent, but if ever there were a case of a mediocre tale redeemed by the way it’s told, this is it."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended

"...It’s taken five weeks of planning and five days of rehearsals, Alas, it only plays through September 26 (weather permitting) across the western façade of the Museum of Contemporary Art. “The Astronaut’s Birthday” is a perfect case of public art, a spectacle that could be called “Stories on Stories” (pun very much intended). In the spirit of Redmoon’s earlier puppet spectacle “Galway’s Shadow” it’s a huge illustrated graphic comic novel played across the museum’s three floors of window panels. It’s both avant and retro, harking back to sci-fi films of the ‘50s and the golden age of comic books in the ‘60s."

Chicago Theater Beat - Somewhat Recommended

"...despite the hours of energy that went into storyboarding, creating and coordinating all these vibrant visual elements, it appears as if little time was given to the piece’s script. It’s not that the tale is too simplistic. It’s obviously aimed at a general audience of children and adults alike. It’s that the 60-minute plot lacks a considerable amount of coherency and characterization."