Denise Crosby & Gale Harold in "Orpheus Descending". Photos by Ginger Perkins.

SWEET
Frantic Redhead Productions’ presentation of Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending is a prime example of Los Angeles theater at its finest. A big-name trio of leading players with serious theatrical credits and training, a gifted director with an inspired concept, and one of the finest design teams in town have combined forces to make one of Williams’ lesser known dramas not only a surefire hit but the first major artistic success of 2010 as well.
Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA

BITTER
Because I hate to arbitrarily toss ice water on any artists’ efforts, I posed the same questions I ask myself for every show I see. Did I meet someone I’ve never met? Did I go somewhere I’ve never been? Did I learn anything? Was the show’s presentation a unique and transcendent experience? For me, the answer to the first three questions is no and the fourth gets a sorta.
Keisha7 – LASplash

SWEET
The matchless dramatic poetry of Tennessee Williams elevates “Orpheus Descending,” which gets its sprawling due at Theatre/Theater. This dark 1957 riff on the Orpheus myth receives a spare, evocative rendition by documentary filmmaker Lou Pepe, his capable company brilliantly spearheaded by Gale Harold and Denise Crosby as the tragic central pair.
David C. Nichols – LA Times

SWEET
Director Lou Pepe understands these limitations and with set-designer David Mauer, makes good use of the small 99-seat space of Theatre/Theaterk, although the over-all look is pretty ugly. He has also cast it well, with Harold, Crosby and Mason making the most of the range of emotions they’re given. They play all the intended sexual tensions and the supporting cast of townsfolk, hypocritical and vicious as Williams believed them to be, are well played by Kelly Ebsary, Sheila Shaw, John Gleeson Connolly and Robert E. Beckwith, along with Geoffrey Wade as Lady’s dying husband and Andy Forrest as the bigoted sheriff. And while this is lesser-Tennessee Williams, it is still worth noting. You just wish it didn’t seem all so drearily stereotypical of a time and place in our recent American history.
Dale Reynolds – Stagehappenings

SWEET
There is a popular conception that talented stage actors can more easily adapt their fine performances for TV/film than the reverse is true, despite the star power effect on the box office. When the play in question is one of Tennessee Williams’ most challenging productions, there is a tendency to assume the worst going in, especially when the director—Lou Pepe, a documentary filmmaker is cutting his theatrical teeth on such an ambitious and unwieldy vehicle. Surprisingly, Denise Crosby of Star Trek TNG and Gale Harold of Queer as Folk dispel these notions and more than rise to the occasion with scintillating, tactile command in this modern epic love story.
MR Hunter – Stagehappenings

SWEET
Though this 1957 Gothic soap opera isn’t generally named among the top tier of Tennessee Williams’ works, it offers a tantalizing mix of soaring lyricism, religious symbolism, and guilty-pleasure theatrics. It’s a testosterone-charged retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in the form of a tragicomedy set in a small Southern town. Director Lou Pepe’s rendition offers a generally solid realization of the play’s virtues. Ironic humor and moments of pathos are deftly dovetailed as the production works its way to a chilling conclusion.
Les Spindle – Backstage

SWEET
Watching Theatre/Theater’s current production of Orpheus Descending, it’s difficult to imagine just why the Tennessee Williams play got such an unwelcome reception when it hit Broadway in 1957– especially considering it was a sixth-generation rewrite to which the Southern playwright had devoted 17 years. Based on the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, it is as poignant now as that myth presumably had been in ancient Greece.
Cory Bilicko – Signal Tribune

SWEET
The production cannot fully escape the melodrama that finally brings the play to a close, but it is nonetheless as theatrically effective as emerging from a nightmare. This may not be the definitive production of Orpheus Descending, but, from the point of view of one who has seen it in its various transformations, it is one that makes its points most sharply and, without losing a sense of reality, captures the richness of its poetry.
Harvey Perr – Stage and Cinema

SWEET
The theater is a bit of an echo chamber, and Brandon Baruch’s murky lighting doesn’t really help Pepe’s decisions to eliminate distracting details such as walls and knicknacks in order to place us inside Val Xavier head and heart. That said, the ensemble saves and elevates the event, particularly Denise Crosby, Claudia Mason and Francesca Casale as the women whose hearts become wrenched by the musician in the house.
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly

SWEET
“Orpheus Descending” has a lot to say and like any great story it is of the “don’t tell me, show me” variety. Sometimes a message is summed up, like when Val prolifically describes a bird with no legs that sleeps on air; or the free-spirited Carol tells Val that she would love to hold something the way he holds his guitar; or Vee Talbot (Francesca Casale) repeats that she needs vision to see. There is much to ponder here.
Cesar Cruz – Campus Circle

SWEET
Most assuredly, many different interpretations will emerge, but one line stays with me “I don’t feel safe in this place, but I want to stay.” Williams’ lyrical contradictions provide some light, even if uncomfortable, at the end of the tunnel of darkness. You can almost see the cobwebs and mildew in David Mauer’s set of the decaying old store, and Jane Anderson’s costumes lend period authenticity. Orpheus Descending will keep you thinking long after you have left the theatre; this is a must-see production! 5 out of 5 stars.
Don Grigware – Grigware Talks Theatre

BITTER
What follows is three hours (and you feel every second of them) of overwrought, over-done Tennessee Williams’ extended metaphors uttered in overly-thick, almost undecipherable Southern accents by befuddled actors in what turns out to be an overwhelmingly underwhelming night of theatre. Fortunately for the cast, director Lou Pepe, and the rest of the crew, the priMary Fault lies with the play itself.
Amber Cassell – BroadwayWorld

SWEET
Gale Harold does a great guitar guy. On his face, in his manner, a lost soul. He’s never gonna make it. Claudia Mason is excellent. She is that slutty character, voice and figure. Francesca Casle plays the sheriff’s religious wife, to the point. My problem was with a fine actress who played Lady, the frantic, trapped wife. She played her part well, especially in the violent, tragic last act, but to my view, she was physically miscast. Denise Crosby is fair and rather stolid, more like a capable Midwestern housewife. I was cursed, I suppose, in seeing Anna Magnani playing the trapped daughter of a loving Italian papa who burned to death. Seething. Frantic. Nudge her and she’ll explode. I couldn’t physically see Crosby in that role, although the part was well-played. Also, the townsman who seduced her and refused to marry her when she was pregnant was rather a dry old stick. No heat between them. Couldn’t see the two of them together. But hey, that was me. You see the play and you tell me. As it was, the play was was engrossing, moving, and very Tennessee.
Clare Elfman – Buzzine

SWEET
One thing too apparent is the lack of sexual chemistry between Crosby and Harold. She’s just there, all over him, literally and figuratively. But, though he’s handsome, in a James Dean way, appropriately mysterious and profound, Harold comes across as a little too reserved, as if he wanted to overplay his contriteness at his prior wild life. Perhaps that’s because Pepe’s realism sought to reign in the play’s underlying subconscious energy of violence, lust, and Orphic mania. In any event, Pepe’s production let’s us experience Williams imagery in all its down-South Gothic splendor and, given all the flammables he had to handle, that’s saying a lot.
James Scarborough – What the Butler Saw