Chicago Tribune
- Somewhat Recommended
"...The actors start sounding shrill and repetitive, the story gets lost, the shocks lose their referents and thus fail to be as shocking. Through it all, though, Moe remains an emotional wreck. In one of the best comedic performances of the year, Moe intensely connects to (or invents) the emotions of her totally ridiculous character, even when she is upside down and naked with her legs flailing in the air."
Chicago Sun Times
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Playwright Joe Orton may have blown the hats (and underwear) off the British, exposing their sexual hypocrisy and unzipping the royal family, the police, the medical profession and more. But for my money, Orton's vastly overrated plays have only withered with time."
Daily Herald
- Recommended
"...Graney has his hands firmly on the reigns during the dizzying first act. It's when his grips slackens in the increasingly over-the-top second act that the show nearly careens out of control. But it stays pretty much on track thanks in part to a first-rate cast who deliver with panache deadpan asides like "You can't take a lover in Asia, the airfare would be crippling;" "My uterine contractions have been bogus for some time" and "No position is impossible when you're young and healthy." This production works as well as it does because the actors play it sincere, gleefully and convincingly committing to their oddball characters."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...Graney’s rendition of Orton’s last work is loud, brash, raunchy, sometimes messy, often very funny, and always creative. It revels in the rude humor and angry cruelty of an artist aptly described by his biographer, John Lahr, as “a voluptuary of fiasco.” "
Windy City Times
- Recommended
"...Blake Montgomery and Mary Beth Fisher make for an wonderfully adversarial married couple of Dr. and Mrs. Prentice, what with his botched secretarial seduction and her dabbling with lesbian intellectual societies and hotel porters."
Chicago Free Press
- Highly Recommended
"...By the middle of the play’s second act, though, there’s a feeling that Graney and Company threw everything into the mix, turning the dial up to 11, just because. Even as the production blunders beyond the zany into the gratuitous, somehow they get away with it—after all, Orton paved the way outrageous conclusion."
EpochTimes
- Recommended
"...A lot of British comedies are made up of unique circumstances, chases, door slamming and slapstick- but of course, even the brilliant wit of a Brit doesn't work without perfect timing and that is a combination of actors having fun with the roles they are playing and a director ( in this case the very brilliant Sean Graney) who allows nothing to hold him back. If you like this type of humor( pure farce) and enjoy having a 2 hours plus laugh attack, you might want to take the drive out to The Court Theatre..."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...Orton’s sex farce about a shrink who tries to take advantage of a naïve secretarial applicant preyed on the sex mores of the British middle-class; Graney’s production takes on the stodginess of the American theatrical middle-class. A gorgeous set and professional resources are utterly desecrated by his rutting direction. (A medal, by the way, goes to distinguished actor Mary Beth Fisher. Her smashingly game participation gives the affair a dignity for Graney to piss on.)"
ChicagoCritic
- Highly Recommended
"...Classic farce can be hilarious or stupidly silly---here it is marvelous funny night of theatre. Get to Court Theatre and laugh your head off at What the Butler Saw. I sure did."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Recommended
"...Blake Montgomery (Dr. Prentice) and Mary Beth Fisher (Mrs. Prentice) had a great on-stage marital relationship to where you could relate to their frustrations with each other and see it in your own relationship. The actors were amazing with their bodies as instruments because there was a lot of physical comedy performed as well as nudity. The mere act of speaking in this play was a workout as the English accents seemed to take extra emphasis to be able to get across which all of the actors did accurately."
