Invisible Man

3 1/2 Stars. "a remarkable, 205-minute, must-see, three-act dramatic achievement adapted by the writer and filmmaker Oren Jacoby"

"a remarkable piece of made-in-Chicago theater that deserves to attract national attention and will, for sure, thrill and inspire Ellison's fans"

5 Stars. "Each member of the ten-person ensemble shoulders his or her weight, but Teagle F. Bougere puts out a Herculean effort as the nameless title character, fully commanding the stage he essentially never leaves. Attention must also be paid to Alex Koch, whose brilliant projection designs are among the most essential I’ve seen; Classical Theatre of Harlem cofounder McElroen creates plenty of compelling stage pictures of his own. This Invisible Man should be seen far and wide."

"A dense, eerily luminous, otherworldly cloud of bulbs and chandeliers hovers over the stage of Court Theatre now, as an altogether hypnotic adaptation of Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison’s classic novel about race, power, freedom and identity, receives a galvanic, emotionally fevered world premiere."

"It is a high-profile project that will be closely watched. The Ellisons had many connections to Chicago. Ralph Ellison taught at the University of Chicago, on whose campus Court sits, in 1961. Fanny McConnell Ellison, who finished high school in Chicago, was a writer for the Chicago Defender, and was also a founder of an early and influential black theater in Chicago, the Negro People's Theatre, in the late 1930s."

“Race is obviously an enormous part of this story,” said the director, who noted he was particularly pleased to present this play on the campus of the University of Chicago, where Ellison taught in the late 1940s. “But the story also is about what it means to be part of that experiment called American democracy — something we are all in together, whether black or white. And what human being hasn’t had moments of invisibility — when you feel you are not seen, or not being allowed to be seen?”

"Anyone who thinks this notion of invisibility is a product of the period Ellison depicts or the time during which he wrote—anyone who believes we've progressed beyond that sort of dehumanization—ought to consider all that Americans left and right have projected onto Barack Obama these last few years. They might also look at the extent to which the Republican candidates for president have turned the entire black community into phantoms."

"Appearances don't deceive with this show: It looks good, and it is. It's worthy of Ellison's great novel, and like the Invisible Man himself, it deserves to be seen."

"Complex and stylistically daring, Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel "Invisible Man" remains among the most respected American artistic achievements of the 20th Century, and this production at the Court Theater in Chicago represents the work's first stage adaptation. Reverently faithful to the novel in both narrated prose and plot, the adaptation captures the book's relentless intelligence and sophisticated view of race and identity."

"The performance of Teagle F. Bougere as “Invisible Man” is a wonder. From his famous opening monologue (“I am an invisible man”) to the epilogue and throughout the life journey from the South to Harlem in between, Bougere creates a character who manages to be both entirely sympathetic and yet somehow, too, a cipher (“invisible”?) to the audience."