Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...Portes has shrewdly cast this piece — and both Buckley and Rafai are, in their very different ways, most compelling and poignant as students who don't quite know what their musical mentor did or did not do to them."
Chicago Sun Times
- Recommended
"...It would be more accurate to say Cho’s drama is a meditation on the insidiousness of evil — on the long half-life of that evil, on the attempt to deny or cover it up and even on its compelling allure. Cho is not without some vestige of hope; the widowed piano teacher (an exquisitely nuanced tour de force by Mary Ann Thebus) certainly feels the beauty and salvation of music. But Cho is clear in her assessment of the primal forces at work in humans."
Pioneer Press
- Recommended
"...At the center of "The Piano Teacher" is Mary Ann Thebus as the titular instructor. Behind her twinkling eyes and companionable chitchat, she's a woman starved for affection or barring that, a sliver of momentary of companionship. But after calling several former students on a whim, Mrs. K. gets more than she bargained for. When two of her one-time pupils come calling, they come to confront, one with sweetness and self-deprecating apologies, the other with aggression and menace. Mrs. K. is going to have to confront the harrowing discord of years ago, both in terms of what her husband did, and in terms of her own complicity."
Chicago Reader
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Having contacted some former students in a fit of nostalgia, she becomes aware that their memories are very different from hers--particularly when it comes to the late Mr. K. Mary Ann Thebus is well cast as the widow whose neat version of things gets turned inside out, and Lisa Portes's production is nicely paced. But the script is problematic. The audience-as-guests conceit ceases to make sense when the shit hits the fan, and Cho never finds a way to get us inside the traumatized students' heads. What this play needs is an omniscient narrator. Which is to say that the story might be better told in a novel."
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Mrs. K's confession requires Mary Ann Thebus, between confrontations with two former students brave enough to re-visit the scene of their turmoil, to soliloquize for over 90 minutes—itself an impressive verbal feat, even without the subtextual shadings associated with Mrs. K's gradual loss of innocence, along with that of the children she would protect against the pain of a harsh universe. Cho may linger a bit in her disclosures—her characters have a tendency to preface their significant speeches—but the light she shines on an oft-ignored phenomenon will haunt you forever after."
Copley News Service
- Recommended
"...The play is carried by Mrs. K, who delivers most of the show’s language in what is really a vast monologue broken only by the late appearances by Mary and Michael. It’s a daunting role that Mary Ann Thebus carries off with distinction, in spite of a handful of line fluffs on opening night. She persuasively makes Mrs. K’s mental shifts from pleasant to puzzled to fearful to outraged to desperate and defeated."
Time Out Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...
Despite some obvious narrative maneuvers in Cho’s 2007 play, Portes keeps the action taut and simple, steadily amplifying Mrs. K’s anxiety over her cheery chitchat. Michael tells her that life works “simply because we have all agreed to hide our knives.” It’s hard to forget Thebus’s eyes at that moment in her finely detailed and ultimately raw performance. They communicate utter heartbreak as the truth cuts apart her refuge, full of cookies and varnished memories."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Recommended
"...It’s chilling how quickly and unquestioningly the opening night crowd for “The Piano Teacher” took to Mary Ann Thebus’ sweet-voiced, demurely domestic title character. Playwright Julia Cho wants to remind us of every gentle neighbor lady who selflessly gave up a concert career to teach kids to tickle the ivories. For thirty years Mrs. K (as she’s cryptically called), a former piano tuner, taught the local lads and lassies the intricacies of Chopin, Beethoven, and Bach."
Chicago Theater Beat
- Recommended
"...The past meets present on a set, designed by Keith Pitts, that captures perfectly a piano teacher’s living room complete with musical artwork. The visual adds to the storytelling with a layer of cozy familiarity. It’s this preconception that makes the revelations more stimulating. Playwright Julia Cho introduces character analogies that are beautifully sad ‘He looked thirsty and he looked at me like I was rain.’ The narrations are delivered in fragment ramblings by a nice old lady, but when the puzzle pieces are placed together, it’s not the picture perfect image of a piano teacher’s home. Cho tells a thought-provoking tale of children’s loss of innocence. Combined with the homey atmosphere and the talented cast, The Piano Teacher is a genuine lesson in facing the music."
