Star Tribune - Somewhat Recommended

"...Playing the work this way is not an unreasonable approach, if the aim is a comic aeration. And indeed, Pinter felt he was having a laugh with "The Birthday Party." But this is humor with a threat; our laughter shivers through tension, nervously fending off the ridiculous absurdity that could invade our own lives. Is this really us, we ask? If we stop to examine our lives, would they appear this banal, meaningless and vulnerable?"
Read Full Review

St. Paul Pioneer Press - Recommended

"...Richard Ooms and Claudia Wilkens play Petey and Meg - the husband and wife who run the boardinghouse - with a sense of the mundane that has been twisted a half turn: The marital banter of these characters bookends the play, giving us an initial sense of discomfit at the beginning and a lingering sense of dread at the end. Katie Guentzel completes the cast with a coy turn as a young woman named Lulu whose presence and purpose in the play is, frankly, a mystery to me. "
Read Full Review

How Was The Show - Recommended

"... The danger with The Birthday Party would be to play the ominousness too overtly. This wouldn’t work; the play would quickly become one overblown moment after another. Director Joel Sass wisely avoids this and keeps things zipping comically along. He has also had the great good sense to cast the delightful Claudia Wilkens, who plays Meg with sweet gusto and a surprising amount of sexual zeal. Her work is nicely balanced by Richard Ooms (Wilkens’s real life husband) who plays Petey with lumbering charm. Petey seems to be the play’s only genuinely happy character, and we adore him. These two anchor the play satisfyingly. As the putative assassins Tony Papenfuss and Martin Ruben energize the play admirably as they circle and harass our hapless hero."
Read Full Review

Aisle Say Twin Cities - Somewhat Recommended

"...Still, although this Birthday Party doesn’t quite pack the punch that one might hope for, it’s an incredibly rich play that has much to offer our contemporary moment. After all, exploring the ways repression – in all of its myriad forms – barges into our private lives remains of the utmost importance."
Read Full Review