Beauty of Ghostwritten obscured by lack of precise clarity
THEATER REVIEW | Iizuka's play is full of potential, but pieces just don't fit
Taken from the April 15, 2009 issue of the Chicago Sun-Times
By Hedy Weiss
Not even those twisted Grimm Brothers (or their enchantingly complicated reinterpreter Stephen Sondheim) planted quite so many thorny thickets along the paths of their fairy tale "woods" as Naomi Iizuka has cultivated in her play Ghostwritten, now in its world premiere in the Goodman's Owen Theatre.
In fact, there are many moments during this play—which is comprised of equal portions of magical beauty and fierce emotion, and has been elegantly staged by director Lisa Portes, but which is marred by a lack of concision and clarity—when you wish you'd been handed a navigation device along with your program. Trying to figure out how all the pieces of Iizuka's story fit together can prove frustrating. And even when the pieces finally are laid out, and you think you comprehend her intentions, you begin to realize that many of the pieces fail to align properly.
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At Goodman, Ghostwritten a spicy mix but needs a steadier hand
THEATER REVIEW | Ghostwritten
Taken from the April 16, 2009 issue of the Chicago Tribune
By Chris Jones
"Rumpelstiltskin," you may recall from childhood, is a creepy, cautionary tale with recessionary implications. In service of an intense desire of the moment, it's easy to promise to give up something in your future, especially if you're convinced it's an option you'll never need. Unfortunately, dear reader, we never know what options we are going to need because we do not know the future trajectory of our lives.
So be careful what you promise.
The playwright Naomi Iizuka, whose new play Ghostwritten is inspired by that Brothers Grimm creation and inhabits a similarly fluid and florid aesthetic universe, is interested in that admonition, but also in the implications of that morality tale for international adoptions and a young adult's sense of self.
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