Rave Reviews for "Kill Your Boyfriends"

The new play titled Kill Your Boyfriends is one of the featured shows at Naked July 2013 at the National Pastime Theater, and it is getting very strong reviews in many of the local newspapers and theater blogs. The show is directed by Derek Van Barham and is produced by Pride Films and Plays. Marya Hornbacher at the Chicago Reader gives the show a "Recommended" designation, and other writers are effusive in their praise for this compelling and erotic drama. Here is a sampling of the recent reviews:

Chicago Theater Beat (Lawrence Bommer)
“Doing most of the dancing, James Nedrud and Erik Strebig transform their passions into contortions symbolizing repeated sex and the exhaustion that follows. Their approach-avoidance movements translate equally well into passive aggression. Mainly, however, their supple bodies speak for themselves, advertising their youth as much as anything in the action. As they use each other’s bodies like props for their lust, they suggest the literal trust that comes from balancing on your boyfriend. The territoriality of ardor is never more blatant than when competing partners try to pull each other through a picture frame separating their clashing egos. Indulging in appropriate or merely distracting soliloquies, the other four dancer-players are caught up in the lovers’ quarrels or observe the fray from a safe distance. Possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but it’s the death of love.” Click here to read the entire review.

Windy City Times (Scott C. Morgan)
“The various texts, spoken largely by Carmen Molina and Christopher Young as a universal bickering couple, serve as a non-linear framing device for the pure dance pieces featuring the fine movement ensemble of Sarah Goldberg, James Nedrud, Erik Strebig and Karen Vance. So amid the largely petty spoken snipes about bedding, privacy, sleep disorders and bed times, there are some incisively silent and powerful dance pieces that can interpretively communicate relationship issues about loneliness, trust, abuse (both physical and mental) and love all along the sexuality spectrum…Particularly good is the amazingly limber and heart-wrenching dance work by Strebig and Goldberg. Though paired mostly in same-sex dance formations, Strebig and Goldberg combine to do a show-stopping dance involving an empty frame that suggests how one partner can manipulate the other by controlling the perceptions self-image and self-worth.”  Here is a link to the entire review.

CenterStage (Colin Douglas)
“Around the dimly lit stage, six young, athletic men and women strip, dress and strip again while performing Van Barham’s steamy, often erotic choreography. Using only a mattress, a stool and a chair, the sextet create couples who seduce, caress, fear their relationships and strain to make it through one more night. The entire company is superb. Expressive and agile, two company members give voice to the text while individuals, pairs and sometimes the entire ensemble physicalize to music what is being verbally expressed. Erik Strebig, however, is a stand-out demonstrating the greatest versatility and athletic prowess. Often paired with Jeff nominee James Nedrud, the couple takes Van Barham’s choreography to new levels, often seeming to defy gravity. This scintillating production is bound to contribute greatly to the summer’s heat.” Click here to read the complete review on the CenterStage site:

There are only three remaining performances of Kill Your Boyfriends, so be sure to get your tickets now before the show closes at the end of July. There is a special midnight performance on Friday, July 26, a performance at 8:00 pm on Saturday, July 27, and a 3:00 performance on Sunday, July 28. You can purchase tickets at the door or use the secure Brown Paper Tickets site to purchase tickets online.