The Illusion

Review: The Illusion
5 STARS.  Newell’s cast hits every note perfectly: Reeger drawing the contradictory feelings of affection, fear and anger that Pridamant holds for his son; Hillary Clemens progressing from giddy first love to woman scorned as the boy’s romantic interest; Elizabeth Ledo scheming as a done-wrong maid. And Timothy Edward Kane has what may be the comic turn of the year as a swaggering nimrod. They make Kushner’s vision a must-see. 

Review: Newell works magic with Court Theatre's 'Illusion'
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Something altogether enchanted occurs when Court Theatre director Charles Newell gets his hands on a play by Tony Kushner and proceeds to set some of his favorite actors and designers to work on it... A spell is cast from the start and it captivates you for the duration.

Review: Life is a dream, is a dream, is a dream
When you’ve got a then-young Tony Kushner doing the adaptation, as in this case, you also have a play that feels fresh ... Newell, who is always at his best with pieces of this complexity, navigates these various philosophical levels with the surety of a Brickles veteran in search of a new high score.

Review: Kushner's Dark Lark. Court Theatre stages a solid Illusion.
It makes sense that Tony Kushner penned a loose English-language adaptation of Pierre Corneille's L'Illusion Comique in the 1980s, not long before he started working on Angels in America. Corneille's 1636 play is a calculated hodgepodge—a funny, sad, tricky fairy tale/melodrama, chock-full of high aspirations, low comedy, and unapologetic magic. Ditto Angels in America.

Article: In ‘The Illusion,' clever theatrical magic, plus vanishing into thin air
In the French Baroque play "L'Illusion comique," adapted by Tony Kushner as "The Illusion," a wealthy lawyer, Pridamant, sets out to find the son he tossed out of the house years before. He hires a magician. At Court Theatre, artistic director Charles Newell sets out to have some fun with the play, a classic by Pierre Corneille that relies on the meta-theatrics of a play-within-a-vision-within-a-play. He also hires a magician.

Review: The Illusion
By now, one knows what to expect from director Charles Newell: bold sets and striking design (“Uncle Vanya”); big emotions and (in the best possible way) sentimentality (“Carousel,” “Caroline, or Change”); playful meta-theatrics (“Titus Andronicus”); narrative coherence amidst structural sophistication and dense vernacular (“Rock and Roll,” “Arcadia”). That his imaginative and beautiful new play at Court Theater manages to showcase all of these talents in one compact evening is some achievement.

Article:  Tony Kushner helps Court conjure up his first play

Plenty of artists would like to forget their earliest works. For his, Tony Kushner was smart enough to riff off an established (if now little-known) classic: L’Illusion Comique, a groundbreaking 17th-century work by daring young playwright Pierre Corneille. Still, his adaptation didn’t come without a hiccup or two—like possibly disturbing Corneille’s ghost.

Review: The Illusion
This marvelous story of a man in search of the fate of his son brings us into a world of illusion and make believe that is mind grabbing from start to finish. Director Charles Newell takes this Baroquish tale to a new level with a cast of some of Chicago's finest. The style of the writing and the direction is one that will leave an imprint on the memory of every theater patron who is able to witness this fantastic production.

Review: The Illusion
In one of the finest productions I’ve ever witnessed at Court Theatre, director Charles Newell’s passion for Baroque metatheatricality comes across in a splendid, throughly engrossing, production of The Illusion running through April 11, 2010. This is a “can’t miss show!”

Review: My love for this show is no illusion!
With this script, cast, and direction, all the ingredients simmer for a basic love potion. Since love is an illusion, Court Theatre adds visual and audio elements to boil this production into a wondrous spellbound version of enchantment. The Illusion is an exhilarating roller coaster ride with twists and turns in the darkness that between giggles I'm certain I missed some of the scenery. I loved the trip so much that I would travel back to Hyde Park for another ride.

Review: A Love Letter for the Theatre
Charles Newell’s enlightening production of the 1988 script now at Court Theatre freefalls through all sorts of storytelling layers, piecing together a tale that is hilarious, dreamlike, and startlingly poignant.