Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended
"...Well, what is a play? In an age of increasing disconnection, what theater has to offer more and more is a rebellion of the embodied against pixelation unto death. This play delivers a subtle analysis of our need for contact, with performances to match; each character's journey leads in some guise or other from numbness to feeling, from alienation to closeness, from information to wisdom. Vanya continues a steady run of life-affirming winners from this storefront off Grand."
Chicago Theatre Review - Recommended
"...At just over two hours, the show’s first act can drag down this otherwise entertaining play. The first act script needs some editing as it can feel a bit drawn out towards the end of it. The pace of act two seemed more appropriate. I really enjoyed the small monologues each actor gives as they report to the primary government or overseers. These quiet moments were well acted and care was taken to reach out to the audience to share something about each character you had not seen before. The NCTP officers from the “outlands” always seemed to be a sense of dread for the players. A sort of – Von Trapp Family trepidation at the final concert – feel."
Buzznews.net - Recommended
"...Imagine some not too distant in the future totalitarian society where young people have never seen a book (much less a theatre play), computer screens had moved inside people’s heads, and language has so many technological terms, it’s barely recognizable. People work all the time, no one goes out anymore, and human interaction is reduced to a minimum. Luckily, mental health is well taken care of: everyone has a virtual psychologist and has to take “a pill”, just to cope. That’s the sad reality of Jason Hedrick’s two-act play ‘Vanya On the Plains,’ staged at The Artistic Home Theatre under the direction of Kayla Adams."
Third Coast Review - Recommended
"...Vanya on the Plains may be a strange and memory-laden play, but it has lovely moments in act two, as some characters begin speaking like their Chekhov characters."
Chicago On Stage - Somewhat Recommended
"...These monologues are like momentary little sparks allowing us to see that these zombielike characters do actually have life within them. Even in these moments, though, humor is hard to come by though the lines suggest it is present. Act Two, which contains (and needs) far fewer of them, finally allows us to laugh. When we do, we discover the rich texture of Hedrick's play and walk away far more satisfied than we were at intermission."
Picture This Post - Recommended
"...As one might expect from the source material written with a doctor's distance, there's not a great deal of plot, but there are many rich characters. Each in Director Kayla Adams's cast largely exist in separate worlds, but they have a chance to open up to the audience during their regularly scheduled therapy sessions with the government. Indeed, we get the sense that these interrogations are the most emotional contact people in this world ever get."
TheatreWorld Internet Magazine - Highly Recommended
"...Vanya on the Plains is not a fractured fairytale. Director and co-Artistic Director of the Artistic Home Ensemble never minimizes the pain each person feels being isolated, unemployed and under surveillance. They are rendered as useless as boulders in a field and cannot even have a personal thought. Casting is superb with Frank Null as the concerned and visionary patriarch who feels like he must protect his family."
