Selected reviews

NEW YORK TIMES: Mother of the Maid

Ben Brantley, The New York Times Read review

NEW YORK TIMES: The Beauty Queen of Leenane

“Aspenlieder is such an effortlessly likable presence. She wears Maureen’s vulnerability visibly, though without apologizing for her character’s nastiness. It’s a lovely, unstrained performance, never better than when Maureen entertains that unheard-of phenomenon, a prospective lover, played by a first-rate David Sedgwick… And Ms. Aspenlieder and Ms. Packer bring everyday familial anger to high-volume confrontations that are all the more disturbing when they take a turn into nerve-scraping violence.” Ben Brantley, The New York Times Read full review

NEW YORK TIMES: The Comedy of Errors

“Elizabeth Aspenlieder played Adriana as a wife driven to distraction, skillfully skirting the boundary between comic excess and earnest sincerity.” Ed Rothstein, The New York Times Read full review

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: God of Carnage

Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal Read full review

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Mother of the Maid

“Elizabeth Aspenlieder shines in the smaller role of a well-intentioned Lady of the Court” Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Bad Dates

“Elizabeth Aspenlieder, a splendid stage comedienne whose zany acting is part of what makes Shakespeare & Company the best theater troupe in the Berkshires, has miraculously contrived to turn Ms. Rebeck's modest little show into a poignant slice of urban life that also happens to be drop-dead funny.” Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal Read full review

BOSTON GLOBE: The Beauty Queen of Leenan

“Yet the actress (Aspenlieder) also captures the shreds of humanity Maureen has left, bringing poignancy to those moments when the daughter grasps at the fragments of a life, as in a yearning moment early in the play when she says: ‘Sometimes I dream . . . Of anything! Of anything. Other than this.’ Maureen is no passive victim in this poisonous relationship. Aspenlieder smartly underplays the daughter, as if to allow us to measure the depth of Maureen’s rage by the strength of the efforts she is making to suppress it — which intensifies the impact when it eventually erupts.” Don Aucoin, The Boston Globe Read full review

“As subtle yet powerful Othello…Elizabeth Aspenlieder gives the flirtatious Bianca a winning blowsiness, which offsets the stiff British schoolboy mannerisms of LeRoy McClain's Cassio.” Louise Kennedy, Boston Globe

BROADWAY WORLD: Bad Dates

“Elizabeth Aspenlieder was the best date you could have in the Berkshires last night. Elizabeth directed and starred in the hilarious and heartbreaking story, Bad Dates presented in the Tina Packer Playhouse at Shakespeare & Co. If you happened to be able to snag a ticket to the "one performance only" presentation you won't forget your time with Ms. Aspenlieder. Hopefully Shakespeare & Co. will find Berkshire theatre lovers more dates to share with Elizabeth to enjoy her superb comedic and passionate acting in her portrayal of a single mother's idiosyncratic journey of self-discovery. It's a hilarious and heartbreaking story, and Elizabeth's solo performance is astonishing as she presses all your emotional buttons. The show was supported by interwoven recorded music provided by the BSO's Tanglewood Music Composer Fellows, directed by Michael Gandolfi and live on stage performance by local singer Vikki True with her band.” Stephen Sorokoff, Broadway World Read full review

TALKIN’ BROADWAY: Mother of the Maid

“During recent years, actress Elizabeth Aspenlieder has been featured in many Shakespeare & Company productions. She does not enter, this time, until well into the first act and does so as the exclusive-like Lady of the Court. Isabelle Arc has walked many a mile to see her daughter and she has worn down. Lady of the Court converses with her, tends to her and literally insists they she soak Isabel's feet. Aspenlieder seizes the comic opportunity and maximizes the interplay. It's a precious and neatly diverting sequence.” Fred Sokol Talkin’ Broadways Read full review

TIMES UNION: HIR

“Though the cast is uniformly excellent, Aspenlieder shines brightest among otherwise equals with a comedic acumen that has never been better, which in Aspenlieder's case is really saying something.” Steve Barnes, Times Union Read full review

BERKSHIRE EDGE: HIR

“Aspenlieder echoes some of her finest performances on this same stage: Her Joellen in “Paradise Drag” and her Haley Walker in “Bad Dates” vie with her Natasha in “Rough Crossing” and Suzanne in “The Ladies Man” for preeminence. Paige is perhaps the quintessence of Aspenlieder’s interpretive skill for this nonstop talker, this woman of violent action veiled as concern possesses traits of other women we’ve seen before, though is ultimately never quite their equal, never quite their better. Paige is the monster mother brought to that point through personal adversity. She has refashioned herself as the loving mother of a disabled husband although that disability, it is discovered, is mostly her own invention and creation. Aspenlieder plays the many sides of this woman, contrasting and controlling and coalescing as multiple personalities can do. She delivers her quick lines and her long ones with equal impact. She devastates with an enthusiastic smile and, when she turns strong and dynamic at the point where she is most needed by the neediest of her “sons,” she once again devastates, this time with finality and without finesse. It is quite a performance in a play about performance.” Peter Bergman, The Berkshire Edge Read full review

THE BERKSHIRE EDGE: God of Carnage  

“Even so, with all of this talent at work, no one takes center stage better than Elizabeth Aspenlieder. She doesn’t need to be physically in that position to grab attention. All she has to do is look at the person holding forth and react to his or her words or actions. What she sees and feels from inside her character we also see and feel. When she is disgusted by something her husband does, Veronica imparts that disgust to us and we feel it, too. When she rises in triumph over a word choice or an admission of guilt, that triumph is echoed by her audience. This actress has a way of immersing herself into her role and giving us the sense that Veronica is real and Elizabeth is somewhere else for the time being and, even four minutes into the play, the actress is forgotten and the woman exists. This provides the play with an immediacy that captivates us and we react with her, as she practically commands. What she finds funny, we find funny. What she is appalled by chills us. Croy brings out her rage. Wold brings out her complex and conflicted reactions to “superior” women, and we get exactly what she feels. This is an extraordinary performance, both funny and frightening.”   Peter Bergman, The Berkshire Edge Read full review

BENNINGTON BANNER: The Consul the Tramp and America’s Sweetheart

“I've had the joy of seeing Aspenlieder in so many diverse roles over the years. On this stage, she was a firestorm of a brash female boss who deftly moved in and out of her own ethical question marks, all to represent the novel notion – for the time period - of a woman in charge of a major business enterprise. Aspenlieder brilliantly showed us both steely resolve and well as weak knees – not an easy trick, even for a veteran actor.” Telly Halkias Bennington Banner Read full review

CURTAINUP.COM: The Beauty Queen of Leenane  

“Elizabeth Aspenlieder who over the course of eighteen seasons has gone from strength to strength in a great variety of roles. Aspenlieder is almost too pretty to play a forty-year-old virgin chafing in her role as drudge and caretaker to an ungrateful, unpleasant mother. Yet, as she first enters through the wooden door of the kitchen-living room of the play's single set (smartly detailed by Patrick Brennan), also unflatteringly swathed in layers of clothing by costumer Sands, she is indeed a drab country mouse — more rat than mouse really when you combine her plain appearance with the anger and frustration that is evident in every move she makes, every word she speaks and the occasional abusive treatment of Mag.” Elyse Sommer, CurtainUp.com Read full review

ARTSFUSE.ORG: A Winter’s Tale

“(As Hermione,)…Elizabeth Aspenlieder as Hermione is a quiet-spoken beauty, who radiates sincerity and loyalty.” Read full review

THE GREYLOCK GLASS: The Waverly Gallery

“Aspenlieder portrays Ellen’s caustic ambivalence towards that burden with such subtly measured doses of emotion that it’s uncomfortably easy to find yourself brimming with compassion for a daughter’s loyalty one moment and then roundly condemning her for perfectly human shortcomings the next. Aspenlieder conveys the strain of the terminal caretaker with a humanity that grounds the production and holds up a much-needed mirror to our own susceptibility to obligation resentment and compassion fatigue.” Jason Velazquez, The Greylock Glass. Waverly Gallery Read full review