Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Gaines' production, staged under a dazzlingly elaborate light sculpture created by set designer Daniel Ostling and nearly consumed by a hilarious costume design from Susan E. Mickey that lands somewhere between "Tartuffe" and "Mamma Mia," has the great benefit of the real-life Canadian couple of Hay and (Ben) Carlson, Stratford darlings both, starring in Chicago like latter-day versions of the Lunts. Both are excellent, as is Heidi Kettenring an indomitable but relentlessly honest Chicago actress who knows that great farce must always have the patina of panic."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...'Monsieur Moliere is dead, but he sends his regards.' To be sure, playwright David Ives sets us straight from the start in his bristlingly clever prologue for "The School for Lies," now in director Barbara Gaines' gorgeous-to-look-at, altogether dizzying production at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Indeed, contrivance becomes a formal mechanism-a way of ridiculing all that's unnatural in a social order as silly/vicious/twisted as that of 17th-century France. Or our own. Ives's excess is remarkably well suited to the peculiar talents of director Barbara Gaines, who-despite such small embarrassments as Kevin Gudahl's lisping courtier-comes across with a staging worthy of her insanely talented leads, Deborah Hay, Ben Carlson, Sean Fortunato, and Heidi Kettenring."
Windy City Times - Highly Recommended
"...Fortunately, director Barbara Gaines and movement consultant Rick Sordelet have drilled their acting ensemble so that they scamper through their slapstick hijinks with the agility and grace of Olympic gymnasts, even while swathed in several pounds of Susan E. Mickey's quivering fringes and ribbons in popsicle colors. Daniel Ostling's scenic design allows plenty of room for athletic antics (did I mention Celimene's mocking impressions of wannabe hip-hoppers and Valley girls?), its dominating motif a massive chandelier that, contrary to our Phantom-fueled expectations, does not fall on our heads."
Centerstage - Recommended
"... “The School for Lies” is David Ives’ adaptation of Moliere’s “The Misanthrope.” Mr. Ives takes some very interesting liberties with the original play, cutting a character and changing several key plot points, but the result is a constantly engaging, contemporary farce that has the audience howling at one moment, and groaning the next."
Time Out Chicago - Recommended
"...Ives is a proficient wordsmith, and he has great fun recasting the comic romances and mistaken identities of French farce in very modern English (with a particular flair for creative vulgarities). His rhyming, chiming couplets get the slightest bit tedious by intermission, and Barbara Gaines's staging leans a little too heavily on indiscriminate wackiness, particularly in Susan E. Mickey's hyperbolic costumes and the overstated buffoonery of Celimene's suitors (Kevin Gudahl's affected lisp is conspicuously over-the-top). But the leads, especially the disarming Hay and delightfully pouty Kettenring, sell the rhymes with verve, and Ives has a few more winning twists to deploy in Act II. This is a twinkling blend of old School and new."
ShowBizChicago - Highly Recommended
"...From the moment you walk into the theatre proper at Chicago Shakes you know are in for a experience like no other. The grand parlor in which David Ives' new adaptation of Moliere's The Misanthrope takes place is visually stunning, with a massive hovering chandelier that would make the Phantom jealous. Flawlessly directed by Barbara Gaines and with a wildly competent cast that effortlessly handles Ives' rapid fire dialogue, The School For Lies is a modern day masterpiece."
Stage and Cinema - Not Recommended
"... Attend David Ives’ The School for Lies—a manic contemporary travesty—if you want to fully appreciate Molière’s 1666 masterpiece The Misanthrope, as serious a comedy as the 17th century farceur ever attempted. Brashly brilliant, grotesquely scatological, industriously low-brow, and perversely wrong-headed, this Midwest premiere of The School for Lies at Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Courtyard Mainstage takes Molière’s bittersweet look at one man’s doomed quest for moral purity and perpetrates a punch-drunk, gag-reflex-ridden, toxically sarcastic, and woefully inadequate “translaptation.”"
ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended
"...Led by the articulate Ben Carlson as Frank and his real life wife Deborah Hay as Celimene, The School for Lies is a rousing smart fun farce filled with funny moments, physicality as well as unique use of rhyming couplets. Greg Vinkler and Sean Fortunato, once again demonstrate their comic acumen. The entire cast is totally committed and seem to be having a good time playing those silly characters. Just sit back at let these talents take you back to 1666 while utilizing contemporary language in rhyming couplets. This show is fun!"
Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended
"...The characters surrounding this central pair raise over-the-top to new heights. Most successful are Sean Fortunato and Heidi Kettering as unlikely lovers Philinte and Eliante. Fortunato plays manly confusion on so many excellent levels - even when wearing a terrific blue dress with an outrageous wig/crown. Kettering walks an electrifying high-wire of comedy and despair. Watching her crawl face down across Dan Ostling's excellent set is worth the price of admission. Samuel Taylor plays twins so well I wish they both could have had curtain calls."
Let's Play at ChicagoNow - Highly Recommended
"...SCHOOL OF LIES may be the most stylish slapstick onstage ever. I'm not lying when I say anybody would enjoy this show. The plot is light-hearted. The dialogue is smart. The cast is superb. It all just works perfectly together like crying and laughing at the same time."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"... Many “classical theater lovers” truly enjoy the works of Moliere- in particular “The Misanthrope”, which is a story about honesty and how a little lie can go a long way. One of the beautiful things about our Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier, is that what is normal, may just not be. In this case, Under the direction of Barbara Gaines, our audiences are seeing this story as seen through the eyes of adapter David Ives taking it to a whole new level. Let me preface what I am about to say with “if you adore or love the original play, you may just have some difficulty with this very modernistic, “camp”, satire using verse and modern language ( with contemporary slang). But, if you are seeking a release of what is pent up inside you and need two plus hours of laughter, this interpretation might be, as the doctors say “Good for what ails you!”"
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"... The inevitable twists and turns of the misanthropic miscommunication with a contemporary twist makes for an entertaining evening of fun. I remember “A Flea in Her Ear” from years ago and enjoyed that production at Shakes. “The School of Lies” is equally as fun, but at times, I am not sure the translation matches the action of the time period presented. I realize it is a convention of the text set against the morals of the day for a contrast. I think there are moments when the crass text just brought the cleverness of the translation down just a bit."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Highly Recommended
"...Watching "The School for Lies" at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater is like sitting for two hours in a verbal wind tunnel. The word play is so dazzling and presented with such abundance that the audience can be pinned against their seats by the sheer velocity of all the clever rhymes and satirical jabs."
