Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...“Trouble in Mind” might not soar with the poetry of “Raisin” (a very high bar), but it is a brilliantly incisive and emotional rich piece of writing, filled with characters suffering from what poet Langston Hughes famously referred to as “the dream deferred.”"
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...“Trouble in Mind” radiates around Rivers’ Wiletta, a leading lady whose star quality is matched by her agile, elegant ability in navigating the endemic racism of a Jim Crow-era workplace. Whether that workplace has truly, substantially changed is the unspoken question at the heart of Parson’s production. Key to that question is Manners’ insistence that he doesn’t see color. “Black, white, green, or purple. I maintain there is only one race. The human race,” he proclaims."
Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...How can you achieve collaboration with people who tell you they want to help you, but turn on you the moment their own authority is questioned? (“You’re great until you start thinking,” Decker’s Manners tells Rivers’s Wiletta at one point—and he seems to believe he’s given her a generous compliment.) That’s the urgent conundrum threaded throughout the heart of Trouble in Mind. Parson’s funny but wrenching production places us up close to these characters as they wrestle with their consciences and each other. The trouble Childress anatomized in her play is still very much in mind, playing out on- and offstage with depressing regularity."
Let's Play Theatrical Reviews - Highly Recommended
"...Like most of Childress's plays, Trouble In Mind stirs many emotions. Depending on your ethnic group, the overall perspective, good or bad, regarding this play is endless — nevertheless, you will walk out contemplating who speaks the loudest on your shoulder — the Devil or the Angel."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...“Trouble in Mind,” by Alice Childress is troubling and difficult to watch. Not because it isn’t an amazing production with incredible performances, because that it is."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...In Ron OJ Parson’s scintillating production of this important play about race and sexism, we examine these problems head-on, as seen within the microcosm of the backstage theatre world. It’s 1957 New York City, and a new, fictional anti-lynching drama entitled “Chaos in Belleville” is about to go into rehearsal for its Broadway debut. Coarse, clueless Hollywood director Al Manners (an ironic name, since the man lacks any idea of polite social behavior) has been tasked with the job of bringing this play to life. The megalomaniac hides his bias and aggression toward everyone he considers to be lower on the creative ladder, especially toward his leading lady, by showering them with insincere flattery and flirtation."
Buzznews.net - Highly Recommended
"...Timeline Theatre, with their strong company, long experience, broad resources and culture of excellence, presents us with a superlative production of this incredible play. At the interval my companion and I were debating which was finer – the script, the acting, or the production – and at the final curtain we were still unable to single one out."
Third Coast Review - Recommended
"...The overarching theme of Trouble in Mind is integrity and demanding better representation in theater. Wiletta’s realization of how she has betrayed her dream of being a real actor as she refuses to play her role as a stooped-over and long-suffering Black mother; enrages not only Manners but the rest of the cast. They want to work in anything to pay the rent and keep themselves relevant as a commodity. They are willing to engage in blatant coonery, which lowers them to playing lazy and bug-eyed stereotypes."
Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended
"...Trouble in Mind, directed at TimeLine Theatre by Ron OJ Parsons, is not afraid of that fight. Though ultimately it becomes a nasty battle between two characters, it is basically an ensemble piece that, from the start, highlights the ways in which Black performers were routinely belittled by the White men in charge of the plays. The play is only a few minutes old when veteran singer Wiletta Mayer (Shariba Rivers), cast as an actress in a drama, gives critical advice to John Nevins (Vincent Jordan), a neophyte who wants to make acting his career, telling him to be sure to laugh at everything the director says and not to argue. This “Uncle Tomming,” she says, will keep him out of trouble and enhance his chances of making it. Clearly, the “trouble” is not just in someone’s mind."
Picture This Post - Highly Recommended
"...In this writer’s view, Alice Childress’ nuanced script is an enduring primer on Whiteness, as searingly insightful today as in the 1950’s, when it was first produced. The pitch perfect direction by OJ Parson seems to let every actor in this production shine, and especially gives Shariba Rivers an opportunity to deliver a tour de force performance. In the intimate space of the Timeline Theatre, we easily see her tears well and her facial muscles quiver. You too may feel that Rivers’ performance is what most plants the Wiletta Mayer character of Childress’ pen in our imagination."
BroadwayWorld - Highly Recommended
"...TROUBLE IN MIND is a blistering portrait of racial and gender politics on Broadway. While the play does meander through the first act and part way into the second to really get at the heart of it, Childress's immense character study also provides a fascinating and all too timely glimpse into the dynamics of commercial theater."
NewCity Chicago - Somewhat Recommended
"...The play is clearly a reflection of Childress’ early years as an actress, condemned by skin color to playing endless maid parts. Wiletta, who seems to be the author’s stand-in, conveys all the frustration of an artist thrust into parts beneath her talents and dignity. But there is such a thing as a writer sticking too closely to her own experience. Lacking reflective distance, the play fails to dig deeply into Wiletta. Like all the characters—with the possible exception of Al, Wiletta’s antagonist–Wiletta remains more of a type, a social construct, than a rounded human being."