Meet the Sycamores – a madcap clan who sets the bar for eccentricity. When Alice brings her high society fiancé home to meet the parents, fireworks (figuratively and literally) nearly bring the house down. Despite their zany antics and unconventional ways, this tight-knit family offers hope that love and laughter lead to happiness, even in the hardest of times.
One of the most popular and successful comedies in American theatre, this Pulitzer Prize-winning, Depression-era classic has a timeless appeal.
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Production photos by Michael Brosilow.
REVIEW
You Can’t Take It With You a delight at Northlight
3 1/2 STARS
DAILY HERALD
By SCOTT C. MORGAN
You Can’t Take It With You has endured through the decades, and Northlight Theatre’s hilarious revival in Skokie shows why.
Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1936 comedy is chock-full of lovably eccentric characters who would easily fit into any modern-day TV sitcom. Also still relevant are the show’s heartwarming messages about family, creativity and the precious brevity of life.
Director Devon De Mayo’s sometimes unconventional casting makes Northlight’s production a delight throughout. Anyone familiar with the play through amateur productions will marvel at how much better professionals can be at finessing and consistently delivering the comic material to prod audiences into gales of laughter.
REVIEW
You Can’t Take It With You at Northlight Theatre/Review
READER RECOMMENDED
CHICAGO READER
By SUZANNE SCANLON
Even if it’s nostalgia that helps keep the play alive, this Northlight Theatre revival is a surprisingly fresh production, featuring a huge cast of characters whose various eccentricities are orchestrated with elegance by Devon de Mayo. “You can’t take it with you,” the patriarch of the Sycamores reminds his counterpart Anthony P. Kirby, a wealthy Wall Street stiff, and while sure, it’s cliched, it’s not overstated. And from dance-obsessed Essie (Joanne Dubach) to painter-turned-playwright Penelope Sycamore (Penny Slusher) to Boris Kolenkhov (Sean Fortunato), the Russian ballet master, there isn’t an actor here who doesn’t delight.
REVIEW
Northlight revives You Can’t Take It With You with gusto
4 STARS
EXAMINER.COM
By JODIE JACOBS
A funny thing happens on the way to the second act of You Can’t Take It With You, now at Northlight Theatre through Dec. 13, 2015.
Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s comedy about the nutty Vanderhoff-Sycamore family during the Great Depression at first seems dated. Certainly in theater terms it’s a very old “chestnut.”
Then, when Wilber Henderson, an Internal Revenue agent explains to Grandpa Vanderhoff that he has to pay income tax to pay for the President, Supreme Court and Congress, you hear Grandpa say “Not with my money.”
Hmm. It sounds familiar to some sentiments still expressed in the 21st century …
Maybe this comedy which took the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1938, really should be looked at again. Fortunately, Northlight Theatre brings the play back to life with fine direction by Devon de Mayo and outstanding actors.
REVIEW
You Can’t Take It With You review – A fun and thoughtful show
SPLASH MAGAZINE
By JESSIE BOND
Continuing its 41st season, Northlight Theatre presents the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy You Can’t Take It With You, directed by Devon de Mayo. Quirky and touching, this story of the wacky Sycamore family’s attempts to connect with the straight-laced Kirbys is both entertaining and meaningful.
You Can’t Take It With You is absolutely an ensemble show, and Northlight has chosen an excellent ensemble for its purposes. Highlights among the actors include Joanne Dubach, who plays absentminded aspiring dancer Essie with a blend of sincerity, sweetness, and awkward charm that makes her a delight to watch. Ericka Ratcliff and Samuel Robertson, who play Rheba and Donald, respectively, bring a vibrant and engaging dynamic to their characters’ relationship and to the stage in general. Finally, John Judd must be complimented for his masterful portrayal of family patriarch Martin Vanderhof, whose clever antics to avoid the IRS are at the comedic heart of the play and whose soft-spoken discussion about the purpose of life with Mr. Kirby at the end of the show holds the play’s philosophical center.
PREVIEW
Enthusiasm of eccentric Sycamore clan hard to resist
EVANSTON REVIEW
By CATEY SULLIVAN
When Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman penned You Can’t Take It With You, they came up with a plot that paved the way for everything from The Addams Family to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Take a family of eccentrics and insert a “normal” group in their midst. And make sure that if the eccentrics fail to pass muster with the normals, dire consequences will ensue.
For the Pulitzer Prize-winning, 1936 drama You Can’t Take it With You, the loveable crazy people are all members of the Sycamore family. When daughter Alice (Lucy Carapetyan) brings home her buttoned-up boyfriend (Bernie Balbot) and his snooty high society parents (Patrick Clear, Jennifer Avery) for dinner, the evening explodes out of control. Alice wants to impress her future in-laws with her suitability, but Alice’s family isn’t exactly a bastion of Wasp propriety.
Opening this week at Skokie’s Northlight Theatre, You Can’t Take it With You is a rom-com that celebrates not just the young lovebirds but also the zany, individualistic Sycamore clan.
PREVIEW
Winter cultural preview – The upcoming season’s must-see theater
CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS
By ANNE SPISELMAN
You Can’t Take It With You: Eccentric doesn’t begin to describe the extended family in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s 1937 Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, and with an all-star cast that includes Brad Armacost, John Judd, Hollis Resnik and Sean Fortunato, their antics should be a hoot. If you’ve never seen this comedy, expect a snake-keeping patriarch who hasn’t ever paid his income taxes, a tinkerer who makes fireworks in the basement, a candymaker who dreams of being a ballerina and, the only “normal” one, a young woman whose romance is in jeopardy. That’s not to mention the tax investigator and cops who suspect a terrorist plot.