AstonRep Archives - Chicago Reader

A bearded man in a white lab coat sits in the foreground, his legs splayed out before him. Behind him is a woman in a dress and a raincoat. They are in an office with high metal filing cabinets surrounding them.

At a loss for words

by Maxwell Rabb May 4, 2023May 4, 2023

Romantic comedies depend on miscommunication. It’s why we love them. It’s comforting to see that everyone stumbles over their words. Our greatest tool for self-expression often mutates into its most frustrating obstruction. AstonRep Theatre Company’s The Language Archive, a comic-drama written by Julia Cho and directed by Dana Anderson, plays on this ironic tension through […]

Two people in a living room. An older woman in a dark dress and pearls stands behind the couch, leaning over an older man in jeans, a flannel shirt, and a baseball cap who is sitting on the couch. We can see a cornfield right behind them.

Theater Review

Unearthing raw passions

by Matt Simonette October 28, 2022October 28, 2022

Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a rural Illinois family beset by delusion and dysfunction is brilliantly brought to life by AstonRep Theatre Company. Alcoholic patriarch Dodge (Jim Morley, who brought to mind Richard Widmark in a stellar performance) is permanently ensconced on the living room couch yelling to his wife, Halie (Liz Cloud). Few […]

Two young women sit at a table. The woman on the left has a bandaged face and holds a coffee mug. The woman on the right is looking up and sitting in front of a large open book.

Theater Review

Take shelter

by Katie Powers May 19, 2022May 19, 2022

In the Chicago premiere of Sarah Treem’s When We Were Young and Unafraid with AstonRep, a group of multitudinous women navigate domesticity, violence, and identity in a cultural landscape that both oppresses and empowers. Set in 1972, just before the Roe v. Wade decision and 22 years before the passage of the Violence Against Women […]

At left, two men sit on a couch while one talks on his cellphone. At right, two women sit across from them talking animatedl. A vase of yellow flowers sits on the coffeetable between the men and women.

Theater Review

Arrested development

by Albert Williams November 19, 2021November 19, 2021

AstonRep Theatre Company returns to live performance after a COVID-induced hiatus with a new staging of French playwright Yasmina Reza’s 2006 comedy, which the troupe previously presented in 2012. Reza’s play, in British playwright Christopher Hampton’s 2008 English translation, concerns two heterosexual married couples, the Novaks and the Raleighs, brought together because their 11-year-old sons […]