Mary Shen Barnidge reviews The Great God Pan for the Windy City Times. Here's an excerpt:
"Playwright Charley Sherman is still remembered in Chicago for his award-winning page-to-stage adaptations of contemporary creep-lit authors, and his rendition of this period thriller is laudable for its roster of elements associated with the genre: esoteric cult-worship, gloomy abandoned houses, gruesome unnatural deaths, masquerade balls attended by licentious guests, strolls through the fleshpots of fin-de-siècle London, innocent virgins strapped to surgical tables, callow youths driven to ruin by femmes extremely-fatales ( reflecting the gilded age's fear and fascination with the notion of uninhibited sexuality—especially in women ) and, of course, gallons of lovingly-replicated gore.
Assisted by Elise Kauzlaric's superlative dialect instruction, Tom Hickey makes a suitably buttoned-up skeptic to Lily Mojekwu's sensual mystic. Steve Herson projects conviction in the role of the technologist unable to cope with moral ambiguity, as does J. David Moeller's elderly witness whose testimony frames our story, along with an ensemble of actors and designers—in particular, Adam Kozlowski's sound, Allison Greaves' costumes and Ryan Oliver's “biological effects.” Together, they transform what could have been merely a quaint study of prudish Victorian intolerance into a timely lesson for audiences today."
Here's the
full review.
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