Critics' Reviews
KWMU:
Abby may be good enough to work as an assassin, but when it comes to a promotion, well, she's a woman, and she's fighting a familiar but unsuccessful battle. To make a bad pun, that's the trigger in "Killing Women," a new comedy by Washington U. alumna Marissa Wegryzn. The Hot City Theatre production opens its new home in the Kranzberg Center, a small, shiny space in the long-ago Woolworth's at the once-fabled corner of Grand and Olive. It will run through Oct. 4.
Julie Layton, who plays the tough cookie as well as anyone in town, is Abby, trapped in her job by her gender despite a good eye and an icy heart. But Peter Mayer, portraying her boss with an accent as muddy and mysterious as his rationale, won't promote her. A sluggish start picks up late in the first act, when Abby is training a ditzy suburban housewife, hoping to install her as succes sor. Lauren Dusek is terrific in the role. Cale Haupert is funny as an ice cream-loving killer, and Adam Flores is fine in three small roles.
- Joe Pollack
The Post-Dispatch
The stylish productions that opened last weekend in midtown — HotCity's "Killing Women" and the St. Louis Actors' Studio's production of Jean Anouilh's "Antigone" — practically invite the audience to create a private imaginary play. Call it "The Heroine Switch."
Whitaker's play is the first production at the Kranzberg, a small, smart new theater in a former drugstore. Sean M. Savoie's Mondrian-inspired set shows off the attractive space and is simple enough to allow for the many changes of place that playwright Marisa Wegryzn dictates.
Although the play is pretty violent, it's also very funny, with lots of comedy based on the "Charlie's Angels"-like treatment of Abby and her colleagues, flirtatious Lucy (Kine Brown) and motherly Gwen (Lauren Dusek).
- Judith Newmark