Yerma presented by Theatre Y at The Ready

Around The Town Chicago - Recommended

"...while the location is new, the play is recognizably a production directed by Red Tape artistic director, Max Truax, who is reunited with his frequent collaborator from Oracle Theatre, music director Nicholas Tonozzi. Lorca’s music-heavy “tragic poem” exists as a phantasmal image in the dark, a tale of a masochistic would-be mother’s loneliness and obsession in a society with twisted notions of sex and motherhood."

Chicago On Stage - Highly Recommended

"...The acting is uniformly strong here, but the night belongs to Stimpson. Wan and thin in a shift that is, at first, far cleaner than any of the others, her character’s needs are written all over her face. And Yerma’s contradictions—the love/hate relationship with Juan, the need for Victor but the understanding that she can never go there, etc.—seem probably as much a cause of her anguish as her barrenness. The one moment when she allows her sexual nature to come out is as powerful as it is brief; that is it cut off so curtly says everything about her misery, and as Stimpson sinks to the floor in pain her loss of hope is palpable. It is a wonderful performance."

Picture This Post - Recommended

"...All in all, the company does an excellent job recreating the limitations of the rural setting and feeling of the play, but for this writer, the decision to dress Juan in modern clothes, with a modern haircut and perfectly trimmed beard seems somehow out of place. While, this is obviously a decision taken with a meditated, specific purpose, to some this choice could seem incongruous with the unity of the whole setup."

NewCity Chicago - Highly Recommended

"...With its nature-heavy setting and pagan overtones, the production illuminates Lorca’s thematic connection of fertility with freedom, of creativity with liberation. The cogency of that message—and the skill with which it is conveyed here—mark Theatre Y as a troupe that has graduated from the promising phase and has truly arrived."