[1][2] In January through March 1985 the play was produced at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, with direction by Gary Sinise and starring John Mahoney, Terry Kinney and Kevin Anderson.
[8] The Steppenwolf productions in London and the United States helped establish Kessler's status as a major American playwright as well as the company's signature "rock and roll" brand of theatre.
[9] To help highlight the emotional intensity of Kessler's parable, they featured an assortment of compositions by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays to be played in the background; the pieces have remained optional for every production since.
In 2005, Al Pacino did a workshop of the play at the Greenway Court Theatre, Los Angeles;[9] Jesse Eisenberg and Southland's Shawn Hatosy co-starred.
With the love and protectiveness of an older brother and an orphan's fear of abandonment, Treat takes away Phillip's chances to grow up, depriving him of knowledge and forcing him to live in a world of illiteracy and innocence: relegating him to their lost childhood.
Curious about the world, he secretly attempts to understand things by watching reruns of The Price Is Right and underlining words in newspapers and old books he finds lying around.
Harold, an orphan himself, with the prowess of an escape artist, loosens the ties that bind him, turns the tables around, and with gun in hand, puts himself into the role of teacher, healer and surrogate parent.
A 1985 review of Sinise's production, by The Record, compared the play with the 1955 black comedy film The Ladykillers and the 1958 Italian criminal-comedy film Big Deal on Madonna Street and wrote, "while one might be tempted to chuckle at Kessler's old-fashioned dramaturgy, it's a fine example of its kind and gorgeously performed by a cast of three under the direction of Gary Sinise... Sinise has staged the piece in a realistic idiom with highly theatrical accents lifelike scenes that begin and end in tableaux, actors throwing themselves around like rag dolls, extravagantly long pauses..."[13] The play was described by The New York Times as "theater for the senses and emotions."
The biggest message is that we need each other, and that's something the viewer can't ignore...."[14] Tony Adler of the Chicago Reader declared, "Lyle Kessler's unassuming tale of two nearly feral brothers and the mysterious businessman who befriends them was and remains among the most devastating things I've seen onstage.
"[15] John Simon wrote in the National Review, "The play was a synthetic contraption out of Pinter and Sam Shepard, but it worked as a showcase for energetic actors and a clever director.
As said by Los Angeles Times critic Scott Collins when reviewing a Deaf West Theatre Company production in 1996, "Whatever the medium, the viewer finds it hard not to be drawn into the emotional journey..." This production of Orphans, by the first sign language theater in the western United States, went on to be a Critic's Choice from the Drama-Logue newspaper and Joseph Dean Anderson's performance as Phillip won him a 6th Annual Ticket Holder's Award under the New Discoveries category.
[citation needed] Further praise for Kessler's ability to create something with such flexibility, while still taking people on its "emotional journey," came from a 2007 production of Orphans at the Penguin Repertory Company in Stony Point, Rockland County, New York.