The Conduct of Life
by Marie Irene Fornes
Organic Theatre, Chicago
director
The slamming of a door, the glow of a cigarette, the regular beats of a jumping jack exercise routine--all assume a sudden power that leaps from the darkness and silence surrounding them ...Thomas Riccio found the right tone and mood for Fornes' work.
The Chicago Tribune
Directed by Thomas Riccio, the Organic production is worthy of Fornes' vision. Riccio's simple, almost declamatory style offsets the horror of events and lets us see down to the disease itself....it has a way of knocking your shocks off without removing your shoes. Its' as if a fire had blown over you and burned the fabric away. You're just left standing there, stunned but rooted to the ground. You're in your shoes and your shoes are set in the ground, but suddenly you're naked. and all hell's breaking loose around you.
The Chicago Reader
The revelation of the play's powerful ending would be an injustice to theatre goers who must experience it for themselves. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the poignant sense of loss evoked by the play's conclusion brought tears to more than one spectator. One man in the audience sat stone still for nearly five minutes after the play ended; he then rejoined the living with a highly audible gasp for breath and life. This one really works.
Facets Features
Set on a high stage overarched by the attic prison where Orlando first hides Nena, Thomas Riccio's appropriately chilling staging builds the hit-and-run black-out scenes into a convincing profile in terror; each slice of death sinking in like an uncompleted dirge.
The Windy City Times