The Writer Reviews

Chicago Tribune - Recommended

"...Hickson, a feminist playwright, is writing about being a feminist playwright in what she sees as an oppressive, patriarchal industry filled with sleazy, hypocritical, gatekeeping men. They're teachers, artistic directors and, yes, critics with their sexist dictates. She begins with a blistering diatribe by a character with a subtly shifting identity: Is this a theater student? An audience member at a small theater? Is this an actress? Is this someone who has returned to confront an abuser? All of the above?"

Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended

"...Directed by Georgette Verdin, Steep Theatre's staging offers a motherlode of stark truths about the intractable, insidious reach of the most intractable global system in place. You know it: It's the system that leads women to apologize before stating their minds or, in the case of The Writer, before talking about their art or their actual lived experience. The system where men get to interrupt women without thinking twice, often to explain what the women really meant to say. It's the system that means roughly 75 percent of all plays produced are by men. It's the system that allows men to far outnumber women in directing gigs, the shift toward parity moving at a glacial pace. As a commentary on the explicit and implicit power of the patriarchy, The Writer doesn't let you look away."

Chicago Theatre Review - Somewhat Recommended

"...The acting is very fine — particularly Lucy Carapetyan as the Writer — and the stage design is beautifully realized. (Though I was puzzled by one elaborate set that was revealed to the audience but never employed.) The production itself is quite solid, but fatally compromised by a script that either doesn’t know what it wants to say, or is afraid to say it without equivocation."

Buzz Center Stage - Recommended

"...The Writer offers an opportunity to question what makes good Art (theater specifically, but as a metaphor for capital-A Art), the role and responsibility of the artist in society, and whether art is an extension of patriarchy or a tool to fight it. It does not offer any answers, which may have some echoing the words of one of the characters, who demands in vain that the Writer “write an ending.” But then they would miss out on the opportunity to do so over drinks after the show."

The Fourth Walsh - Highly Recommended

"...This show is truly unexpected and thought-provoking! Since the experience relies on a certain amount of surprise, I'm purposely not describing the show in any detail. Hickson writes passionate dialogue with sexual politics percolating under every word and action. She also peppers the drama with witty one liners or wildly absurd utterances. It's a fine balance between drama and comedy. Hickson's script is a true original ... and so timely in this summer's Barbie revolution."

Third Coast Review - Somewhat Recommended

"...The Writer, Steep Theatre’s new play by English playwright Ella Hickson, is an assault on theater and on the patriarchy. It’s a much-deserved feminist assault. Whether it’s good theater or not is another question. The play, directed by Georgette Verdin, is in no way a well-made play, but if you care about theater, you will want to see it."

Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended

"...I totally loved this production and this play. It might easily have become polemical, but Hickson makes sure to present both sides (though there is no doubt where her sympathies lie). In each performer here (especially Carapetyan), Verdin's directorial touch is palpable (as is her careful work in each scene's interpretation)."

Splash Magazine - Highly Recommended

"...If you are a woman artist, you must see this show. If you are anyone else on the spectrum of gender, or in relationship to art, you must see this show. It will make you feel. It will make you think. It will contradict itself in just the way that each of us is guilty of contradiction, and you will walk away with much to turn over in your mind. What more can we ask of a play?"