Chicago Tribune
- Recommended
"...Linguistically, the script is very interesting along those same lines, with 'tween talk crashing up against the agony of refugees and the naked application of power. Certainly, it's a one-idea kind of satire with set characters, but Jones also is smart enough to make sure that her allegory does not extend past the freshness of her metaphors. I can see this script being popular in colleges in the future; it's a zesty little piece that certainly makes good on its thesis that nobody ever leaves the traumas of middle school behind."
Chicago Sun Times
- Recommended
"...Penned by first time playwright Jojo Jones, "Veal" takes the idea of nostalgia and stretches it to the most absurd limits. Jones asks existential questions about power dynamics, memories and ultimately questions reality itself - can we trust our own memories? Does it even matter if our memories are real if they manifest into serious consequences in adulthood?"
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...But as the play unfolds in a taut 75 minutes or so, we see that Chelsea wasn't always the mean girl. Instead, she's nursing pain and trauma from the way her three visitors treated her in middle school. (In fact, her throne room is apparently in what's left of the school's gymnatorium, turned by Tianxuan Chen's set and lighting design into a near-fun house atmosphere with big reflecting mirrors at one end of the small space.) If they want her help, they're going to have to relive the torments they inflicted upon her-at lunch, at parties, and most disturbingly, on a field trip to a petting zoo where something very bad apparently happened to her."
Stage and Cinema
- Recommended
"...At some time in the future, a band of rebels have staged a successful coup against the United States. The prevailing system of order has been violently overthrown. Cities are razed to the ground, with surviving citizenry housed in camps. Food is scarce. Medicine is scarcer. And in a shiny new palace, bedecked in a shimmering white gown, a young woman named Chelsea is installed as the Queen of North America (one assumes that Mexico and Canada have been overtaken by the revolutionaries)."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Highly Recommended
"...Jojo Jones' new play Veal is a terrifying and funny work about the viciousness of middle school. It is a must see if you are up for a wild ride of great theatre. Because of where we are at as a society, it's a devastating commentary on our culture."
Around The Town Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...If you are looking at interesting theater, A Red Orchid may have just what you are seeking. As they begin their 33rd season, they are bringing a World Premiere written by JoJo Jones, entitled "Veal". I suppose many people seeing that title might just be thinking meat, but the "meat" in this play is the actual subject matter. Try to imagine that our country has been through a revolution. During that revolution, there was a coup. A fairly violent coup and following this violent coup, a young woman named Chelsea (Alexandra Chopson) becomes Queen of North America."
Chicago Theatre Review
- Highly Recommended
"...Jojo Jones' World Premiere is extremely interesting and highly entertaining. There's a certain amount of mystery that permeates the atmosphere of the play, and we are never truly sure about where the events are heading. But this is a fascinating fable about getting what you give and pent up retribution for the past. Upon leaving this often amusing, sometimes frightening
90-minute one-act, the audience can only ponder that old adage that, when it comes right down to it, Karma can be a bitch."
Buzz Center Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...Jojo Jones' "Veal," premiering at A Red Orchid Theatre in Old Town, is among the recent wave of plays set in a post-apocalyptic near future - the better to show how core social values and structures might play out for individuals placed abruptly in a clean-slate setting. The increasing frequency with which this plot line appears on stages and screens tells us much about the trending thoughts of playwrights, who likely are voicing societal angst about the state of things - and reasonably so."
MaraTapp.org
- Recommended
"...Alexandra Chopson plays Queen Chelsea with the right combination of icy cruelty that masks pain and abuse. Chopson makes her desire for revenge palpable. The three classmates are particularly persuasive in their portrayals. Jojo Brown is Franny, the friend asking the favor, and expertly vacillates between fear and hope. Alice Wu as Noa and Carmia Imani as Lulu are adept at letting their nervousness, insecurities and kindness emerge. Jasper Johnson plays the Unnamed Male Concubine as an ideal attendant whose ruler's every whim is his duty. All are at their best under dado's direction."
Allie and the After Party
- Highly Recommended
"...Entering into a middle school that looks like it’s frozen in time, we meet the new Queen of North America who plans a twisted memory game with her “friends” from middle school. Showing us the terrifying lengths a person would go to for revenge, Veal keeps us on our toes in this psychological thriller of a play."
NewCity Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Directed by ensemble member dado, the ninety-minute play opens with Queen Chelsea (Alexandra Chopson) and her unnamed concubine (Jasper Johnson), stiff as waxworks on a raised marble platform. Chelsea resembles a young Queen Victoria in a white, pink and blue dress, with a hoop skirt and lots of tulle. Created by costume designer Izumi Inaba, it's the kind of fantasy outfit a thirteen-year-old would design for herself."
Busking At The Seams
- Highly Recommended
"...Veal is a deep dive into the trauma we cause and yet think is innocent - childlike. But the tables eventually turn, or at least that is what our mothers tell us. Vengeance is such an ugly word but maybe if there was more vengeance we wouldn't be in the state we are now, maybe the world in Veal wouldn't be where it was, if evil had gotten theirs earlier and we stopped turning the other cheek. In the end though, a wolf is a wolf, no matter the sheep's clothing and the blood remains on their hands."
