Star Tribune - Somewhat Recommended
"...The results are mixed. Michael Kittel’s excellent lighting design guides our eye through an often frenzied and disjointed production. Esperanza and her friends riding a makeshift bicycle are lit with sunny warmth. Voices carry well, and the sound design by Anita Kelling gives us a good sense of location. Director Dipankar Mukherjee’s staging, however, does not do well with the theater’s sight lines — at least from where I sat."
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Twin Cities Pioneer Press - Recommended
"...It's a worthwhile show, chiefly because of an excellent performance by Alejandra C. Tobar as the adolescent protagonist, a bundle of energy, uncertainty and endearing openness as she takes you on a tour through daily life in a Latino Chicago neighborhood of the 1970s. Like the novel, the play is more a series of scenes and character sketches than a story with a clear arc, but Cisneros' poetic narrative style and Tobar's wide-eyed host lend the feel of magical realism to a gritty urban landscape."
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How Was The Show - Recommended
"...Director Dipankar Mukherjee embellishes the narration, as delivered by either the young Esperanza (Alejandra C. Tobar) or Older Esperanza (Adlyn Carreras), with pantomimed activity: playing ball, riding a bike, shaving and more everyday occurrences that swirl around Esperanza and of which she takes notice—but they come and go. She remembers, though: stories of domestic violence, immigrants suffering deep homesickness for Mexico, a lonely old woman, a fortune teller. Tobar and Carreras are a nice match, balancing play and danger, the present moment and recalling the past."
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