Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...One couldn't ask for a better setting than the baronial great hall of the Peabody mansion, with its high ceilings and neo-Tudor crossbeams, and Angela Miller's set takes advantage of the soaring space, and turns the underside of the stage into a creepy catacombs with a few well-placed skulls. Even the chill in the air opening-night added to the atmosphere."
Daily Herald
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Director Alison C. Vesely and her cast also seem a bit hampered by the serious tone. Any servants' humor for the duo of Jacques and Diego (Eli Branson and Jim Kozyra) dissipates too soon, while the likable feisty servant Bianca (Lindsay Leopold) is given far too little stage time."
Chicago Reader
- Not Recommended
"...With its larger-than-life characters--a dashing hero, evil baron, and princess in distress--and its twisty, swashbuckling plot, Horace Walpole's 1764 gothic horror story is perfect for the stage. But only if everybody involved agrees on what to do with such cartoonish material--which they don't in this uneven, at times laughably awkward production directed by Alison Vesely from an adaptation by David Rice."
Windy City Times
- Recommended
"...The cast of fresh young talents combined with seasoned northwest-suburban retainers were clearly on the right track, however, needing only a little settling-in time to overcome the stumbles engendered by insufficient textual and logistical familiarity before finding the correct pace for this Classics-Illustrated brand of period drama. And amid a plethora of shriek-and-giggle shows for the Halloween season, it can't be denied that First Folio's ambitious project, whatever its flaws, offers a refreshingly adult reminder of a time when "horror" was a product of things lurking unseen."
Time Out Chicago
- Somewhat Recommended
"...for all its potential, the production falls flat. The play’s beginning and ending hang on similar offstage occurrences; little happens onstage between them. Director Veseley repeatedly allows wordy exposition to bog down opportunities for tension (when blood seeps from the chapel’s altar, characters have a brief “aha” moment and then carry on with their chat). Cheesy special effects, which could be forgiven in a more exciting context, earn awkward laughs. The able cast does its best; as the lascivious Manfred, David Girolmo strikes the right mix of comic evil. But the show devotes too much time to explaining itself and not enough to creating true suspense."
ChicagoCritic
- Recommended
"... If you enjoy seeing a Gothic novel come to life as I do, then The Castle of Otranto will thoroughly entertain you. Once the folks at First Folio Theatre get accustomed to all elements of their chapel turned stage, their productions will benefit. David Rice’s world premiere is sure worth a look. It is slick, well staged and well performed."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Fate plays a strange hand in Horace Walpole's 18th Century novel, "The Castle of Otranto," the subject of David Rice's original stage adaptation for First Folio Theatre. One can certainly see where Rice and Director Alison C. Vesely might have been attracted to this semi romantic mystery that is said to have inspired such literary horror scribes as Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley. But there isn't anything that horrific or thrilling in this handsome if heavy handed rendering. In fact, the melodramatic twists and turns of Walpole's Gothic plot are almost laughable. Would they had been played with a tad more irony they might have made for a pretty loony comedy."
