'Thieves Like Us' by House Theatre: Slick gangster caper just needs more heart" - Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune 9/20/10 - "Somewhere in the middle of “Thieves Like Us,” the House Theatre of Chicago's stylish new adaptation of the 1937 Edward Anderson novel, you start to feel like you're watching a theatrical take on Sam Mendes' “The Road to Perdition” or Brian DePalma's “The Untouchables,” or some other stylish crime movie known for its precise physical detail and deft chronological manipulations.

Flashbulbs pop. A typewriter clatters. A torch singer wails. Victims scream and fall silent. Bullets pump fast, then slow, and then fast again into their targets. And through it all, a pair of forlorn lovers, unable to escape their community of crime, cling to each other's bodies, sweating through thin cotton.

If you were wondering what the gifted Chicago director Kimberly Senior can really do with a moving stage picture, then the bravura results are on display here. “Thieves Like Us” is perhaps the slickest and most polished show I've ever seen at the House Theatre, where such qualities have rarely been the strongest suit. It is a fine caper, a great yarn, staged with relish, imagination, oomph and élan. On opening night, most people were having a great time.

But I've also seen House shows with more heart, more yearning, and more vulnerability.

Certainly, the cinematic quality of the staging is apt. Anderson's novel is widely seen as a signature, if under-acknowledged, template for the hardboiled crime genre. Prior to Damon Kiely's new stage adaptation, the novel was the source for two different movies (Nicholas Ray's “They Live By Night” in 1948 and Robert Altman's “Thieves Like Us” in 1974). It's the Depression-era story of a working-class gang of guys who break out of jail and set to robbing banks across Oklahoma. There are three key players — the reasoned and paternalistic T-Dub (Tom Hickey), the maverick, trigger-happy Chicamaw (Shawn Pfautsch) and Bowie Bowers (John Byrnes), the striver of the trio. As the novel wends on and the early crimes pay off, Bowie and his girlfriend Keechie (Paige Hoffman) become our central concern.

Will they escape both their economic desperation and Bowie's loyalty to the dangerous fellows who saved his hide? Can they find love and peace somewhere? Or will it all end, as we suspect it will, in a Bonnie and Clyde-style hail of bullets?

There is a great deal to admire here, including a raft of honest and enigmatic performances (Bridget Haight, Tim Curtis, Chris Mathews and Mike Smith play a variety of bank managers, victims, cops, lawyers and the like) and any number of shrewd ways of staging the multiple short scenes in a novel infused with the dusty, open road. The storytelling is sure-handed and highly creative, and, in the best sections, you feel like Senior and Kiely are commenting upon the generic implications even as they embraces them.

I kept wanting, though, to feel far more than I did. Ideally, the piece would rise more above the situational, throw off some of its own slickness and allow its characters to embrace more of the existential moment. The play almost gets there, especially in the poignant and sensual last 10 minutes, but the scenes are ultimately too short and rushed for human angst to really take root.

The idea of having Beth Sagal pop out in a gown with melancholy songs is a good idea on paper and it surely adds to the period mood, but, as performed here, it also feels repetitious, kills off some of the human energy, and it lacks a sufficiently strong emotional connection to the action in hand.

For this emerging show to really live up to its potential, everyone might ponder anew the key words “Like Us” that appear in the title. That's the last step".

"Clever Thieves makes big score" by Hedy Weis, Chicago Sun Times 9/21/10 - "Think of "Thieves Like Us," now in an exceptionally stylish world premiere stage production by the House Theatre of Chicago, as a more subtle version of "Bonnie and Clyde." Punched up with some wonderful theatrical tricks and brought to life by a cast that looks as if it has been lifted straight from the pages of 1930s newspapers, the show spins the bloody tale of a trio of Depression-era bank robbers on the run in the Southwest, and of the one member of that gang who has a heart but can never quite manage to forge a fresh start.

Based on the 1937 noir crime novel by Edward Anderson (the source of films by both Nicholas Ray and Robert Altman), this new stage edition has been artfully adapted by Damon Kiely. And it has been brilliantly directed by Kimberly Senior, whose ever bold and inventive spirit is matched by the work of choreographer Tommy Rapley, fight master Nick Sandys, and composer Kevin O'Donnell, the thrilling environmental scenic design of Lee Keenan and the richly nuanced contributions of Alison Siple (costumes), Charlie Cooper (lighting) and Christopher Kriz (sound), all of whom have helped create a deliciously cinematic (and also winningly Brechtian) piece of theater.

The story is pure Americana. When Bowie Bowers (John Byrnes, who expertly conjures his character's romantic and reluctant criminal nature), Chicamaw (Shawn Pfautsch, ideal in his sadistic volatility) and T-Dub (Tom Hickey, as the older, cooler mastermind) break out of an Oklahoma prison, they embark on a series of bank holdups that grow ever more brutal and desperate and trigger an intense manhunt.

For Bowie there is an added complication because he has fallen hard and fast for Keechie (Paige Hoffman, perfection as the fearless Dust Bowl girl just meant for this guy). And though the lovers dream of making it to safety in Mexico, Bowie's loyalty to his pals dooms them.

Chanteuse Beth Sagal segues through the story like the angel of death, glittery in a white gown as she seduces with her torch songs. And there are top-notch mood-setting turns by Tim Curtis, Bridget Haight, Chelsea Keenan, Chris Mathews and Mike Smith, all of whom join to suggest onlookers to the getaway car, bank tellers and customers, a diner owner, tabloid reporters and more.

The show could use some editing, and at moments the dialogue gets garbled in all the excitement. But mostly it moves like a dream, and makes you feel the characters' adrenaline pumping"

Review: Thieves Like Us, John Beer TimeOut Chicago 9/22/10 - "Edward Anderson’s 1937 novel pioneered the “couple on the lam” scenario and spawned fine film adaptations by Nicholas Ray and Robert Altman. Whether the story can work onstage remains an open question; despite the efforts of an impressive array of talent, the House’s flashy presentation yields some striking moments but never gels into a satisfying whole.

The story of Depression-era bank robber Bowie Bowers, who tries but fails at the straight life, could make sense as a period romp, suspenseful caper tale or slice of neo-realism. But it can’t be all of those things at once. Pfautsch’s scenery-chomping bandit Chicamaw (think a drawling Joe Pesci turned up to 11) clashes uneasily with the aw-shucks gentility of Byrnes’s Bowie. The second act features a subtly sketched idyll, as Bowie tries to make life with his girl Keechie (Hoffman) work. Sandwiched among dispiriting stretches of looting, whooping it up and shiftily evading passersby, this tender section seems to have walked on from a different play.

Charlie Cooper’s noirish lighting, some nifty work with a pulley and recurring choreography with newspapers keep Thieves Like Us looking lively. The play closes with an Arcade Fire–style chorale and an exploding bed; I suppose the House contractually requires that kind of thing. All the spectacle ends up seeming fairly hollow, like a murder ballad given the Brandon Flowers treatment"

Thieves Like Us - Catey Sullivan, Chicago Theater Blog 9/21/10 - "House Theatre fans will be in their raucous comfort zone with the company’s latest action-packed production. Thieves Like Us is chock full of the House’s signature elements:  Retro-comic book storyline? Check. Old school siren whose vocal stylings punctuate the scenes? Check. Cops, robbers, dames and drunks? Yup. And where previous House productions have made ingenious use of actors striding across the stage carrying picture frames and pop-up books to evoke small towns, big cities and points in between, Thieves uses a similar technique with newspapers to illustrate the Dust Bowl surroundings of Bowie Bowers and his posse of stick-up men.

But even with its profoundly predictable ending (which pays homage and owes a debt to both Bonnie and Clyde and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thieves Like Us  is a step up for the House. After bursting onto the scene in the early Aughts with an inspired, revisionist take on Peter Pan,  the House continued with variations on the theme of lost boys long enough to become repetitive. The particulars changed as the House churned out stories of Samarai, cowboys, wannabe rockstars, science nerds and flying cheerleaders (our review ★★★½) – but the core of each adventure remained the same: Adolescence is tough. Growing out of it is even tougher.  For a while, it seemed that their target audience was restricted to ‘tween boys.

thieves Like Us - House Theatre - posterThat demographic will love Thieves Like Us, no doubt. But Thieves, written by Damon Kiley and directed by Kimberly Senior also has enough smarts and wry self-awareness to make grownups smile as well. It’s hero – Bowie Bowers, Depression-era desperado driven to thieving because an honest Joe can’t catch a break in the Dust Bowl – is surely relatable to anybody who has felt the pinch of the current recession (which is to say, everybody).

We first meet our hero at hard labor on a prison somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line – the locale being evident by the oozing-syrup Okie drawl everybody talks with. It’s mere moments before the first burst of cartoon violence breaks out as Bowie (John Byrnes), hardened convict Chicamaw (Shawn Pfautsch) and elder statesman T-Dub (Tom Hickey) make a break for it. Across the plains they go, knocking over banks and planning One Last Score so that all can retire, maybe in sunny May-hee-ko. There’s A Girl (of course), who is instrumental in convincing Bowie to give up the stick-ups and settle down to a quiet life “on the straight.”  But of course Bowie can’t do that until he makes that One Last Score. And but of course, the last heist goes spectacularly awry.

The plot may be less than innovative, but the Kiley’s dialogue and the ensemble’s zesty execution of it make it mighty entertaining.

As Bowie, Byrnes creates a man of simple wants and basic decency – all he wants is a clean start, Bowie keeps emphasizing, but of course that’s just not possible, no matter how much money he steals.

Senior elicits strong performances from her supporting cast as well, starting with Pfautsch’s Chicamaw, who comes close to stealing the show along with the loot from the vault. Pfautsch instills the violent, hard-drinking, hardened criminal  Chicamaw with an impish spark that’s part playful sprite and part psychopath. It’s hard to say which is dominant, and that’s part of the character’s dangerous, wild-eyed charisma. The third man in the gang is Hickey‘s T-Dub, the nominal brains of the group. Also memorable is Tim Curtis, who exudes sly, degenerate charm first as a retired hold-up man and later as an oily attorney.

As for the women in the cast, Chelsea Keenan radiates joy, lust and deliciously girlish immaturity as Lula, a good-time blonde who can turn a kitchen table into a dance floor faster than you can say Jack Robinson.  And as a one-woman Greek goddess of a Greek chorus, Beth Sagal’s torch song narration is as rich and velvety as fine chocolate.  Breathing life into the composer Kevin O’Donnell’s seductive melodies, she’s a showstopper whose perspective adds significant depth to the comic book veneer. As for Bowie’s gal, the “Pistol Princess” Cheechie, Paige Hoffman is an appropriately hard-nosed moll although her romance with Bowie isn’t especially believable – they seem to love each other only because conventional storytelling demands that the main gangster have a girl to complicate matters.

The adventures of Bowie Bowers might not be especially original. But they’re colorful and clever and entertaining as heck"

Program Notes - Set in the Depression-era dustbowl, Thieves Like Us follows one man’s quest to make his own morality. Bowie Bowers busts out of Alky prison and goes on a spree of bank robberies with hardened criminals T-Dub and Chicamaw. His newfound gal Keechie wants him to give up the life and settle down. Bowie figures he’s no more a thief than the politicians and bankers who steal with their brains instead of a gun. When the law busts up the gang Bowie is forced to make a decision: does he lam it for Mexico with Keechie by himself or does he break Chicamaw out of jail to be their guide?

Kimberly Senior (founder and company member emeritus of Collaboraction Theatre Company) directs the third House show developed in partnership with a university.

8p Thu-Fri; 7p Sun. / $15 during Previews (9/9-9/18). / $25-29 (Th/Su=$25;  Fr=$27; Sa=$29)