Review Roundup: What Did he Critics Think Of THE DOPPLEGANGER at Steppenwolf?

Due to popular demand, Steppenwolf Theatre Company has extended the world premiere comedy, The Doppelgänger (an international farce) written by Matthew-Lee Erlbach (Showtime's Masters of Sex, Off-Broadway's Handbook for an American Revolutionary), through June 2 with the original cast.

Directed by ensemble member Tina Landau (SpongeBob Squarepants: The Broadway Musical), this hilarious farce features an 11-member cast led by actor and comedianRainn Wilson, well-known for his role as "Dwight Schrute" on NBC's comedy The Office, in the role of Thomas Irdley/Jimmy Peterson. The cast includes Steppenwolf's ensemble members Celeste M. Cooper, Audrey Francis, Ora Jones, Sandra Marquez and James Vincent Meredith with acclaimed actors Michael Accardo, Whit K. Lee, Andy Nagraj, Dan Plehal and Karen Rodriguez.

Tickets to the extension ($20-$114) go on sale today, Friday, April 20 at 11am through Audience Services at 312-335-1650 or steppenwolf.org. Flex memberships are still available; for more information, visit www.steppenwolf.org/memberships.

Let's see what the critics have to say!

Jack Helbig, Chicago Reader: Parts of the play are very funny. Erlbach delights in packing in references to other, earlier comic writers and actors-Danny Kaye, Abbott and Costello, Peter Sellers, even Dr. Seuss. (James Vincent Meredith's killingly funny send-up of a wheelchair-bound African dictator, owes much to Sellers's Strangelove.) But whenever things get too funny, Erlbach, Landau, and company slam on the brakes. It's as if they, like our Puritan ancestors, get nervous whenever they see people having too much fun. They don't seem to understand what Southern, Ludlam, and the rest knew in their souls: that comedy is all about revealing the repressed, expressing all the awful things we all try to keep hidden away. Instead they remind us that we're here to condemn "blood diamonds," "blood lithium" and other horrors of postcolonial Africa.

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune: The main structural issue that really needs fixing in the play is what needs and desires are supposedly driving the action: there's the overall motivation for profit, of course, but Erlbach truly has yet to convert that into moment-by-moment tension. Especially in the middle sections of the show, the big picture pixelates, leaving the gags to live and die on their own. Landau and her cast - all operating on a tricked-out setting by Todd Rosenthal - are up to the challenge in most cases. But the show needs a macro acceleration. The best farces are like runaway cars heading down mountains. Fueled by human anxiety, they go faster and faster, arriving at their destinations only seconds before they crash and fall apart.

Barbara Vitello, Daily Herald: The performances are delightfully broad. Landau, who has a flair for physical comedy, sets a breakneck pace, one her first-rate cast ably maintains. That's especially true of New Trier High School graduate Wilson (a quick-change master) and Cooper. Both are indefatigable. In the amoral world of the play, Cooper makes a convincing moral center. Her motives are pure, which makes her despair all the more wrenching.

Lisa Trifone, Third Coast Review: The show not only keeps up a frenetic pace throughout (without ever feeling rushed), but it builds momentum such that as the second act reaches its peak, you can actually see the sweat on the actors' faces as they give it their all. And none give more than Wilson, who-with the help of some fun theater tricks I won't spoil here-switches between Jimmy and Thomas more than a few times before the lights come down on the final scene, effortlessly bouncing between accents and demeanor at a moment's notice, depending on who he is at any given time.

Lawrence Bommer, Stage and Cinema: But the worst breach of faith of this too-long (150-minute) pseudo-comedy is to mock the audience for guffawing at an African nation's desperation. By the end, like these nasty international interlopers, we're all metaphorically forced to our knees, ripe for execution. A farce is about to eat its own. Trying to have his dramatic cake and eat it too, Erlbach can only starve the beast.

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