The Violet Hour

Jack Helbig, Chicago Reader

" In Steppenwolf's glossy 2003 staging of Richard Greenberg's play, an impressive set and careful performances designed to show off the characters' cleverness made the script feel like nothing more than a precious plume of postmodern spun sugar. In Mikhael Tara Garver's rougher, considerably more intimate Uma Productions staging--Brian Sidney Bembridge's design brings us right into the set--Greenberg's wry, witty tale of literary types in 1919 is much more urgent and persuasive. Even the comic moments seem darker and richer, less a means of avoiding uncomfortable feelings than of conveying them. Lily Mojekwu is especially fine as an African-American singer in love with a spoiled but talented young publisher".