Two men in a diner drain the last drops of their coffees and think about ordering dessert. In the denouement of their physical, intellectual, and sexual lives, they wax nostalgic and try to communicate across a wide divide.
Shapiro Featuring ensemble member Tracy Letts Run time: minutes. But this race is long-distance Director Patrick Zakem. Director of Photography Robert Benavides.
Artistic Producer Leelai Demoz. Production Manager Elise Hausken. Casting Director J. Clementz, CSA. Production Stage Manager Laura D. Puppet and Production Designer Grace Needlman. Director of Photography Christopher Rejano. Puppeteer Landy Felix Mayes. Puppeteer Ted Mike Oleon. Director Anna D. But few things, surely, are as exciting for a Chicago theater-goer as seeing a work with such an off-Loop DNA being expanded and exploded in this way, now the work of mature but still-fearless artists who are at the peak of their international careers.
I doubt Broadway has the capacity or appetite for more Letts this year, but you never know. Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended. The plot is part noir, part love story, part psychological thriller. Agnes Carrie Coon lives on the margins of society in the grimy hotel, spending her days getting high and mourning the son she lost when he was abducted from a supermarket years earlier. Her ex-con ex-husband Jerry Steve Key is an unwelcome guest. He tried to kill her once.
He'll probably try again. When Agnes' best friend R. Jennifer Engstrom, whose blowsy majesty will make you wish R. Daily Herald - Highly Recommended.
A combination love story, psychodrama, dark comedy and horror tale, "Bug," by Tracy Letts, is a wholly riveting account of a paranoid Gulf War veteran and the hard-up, heartbroken waitress who comes to share his obsession. Chicago Reader - Highly Recommended. Peter's paranoia exhibits as a multilayered theory about the millions of militarized bugs he believes his body fell prey to after a state-sanctioned experiment on citizen surveillance went wrong.
As originally written by Letts, Agnes is 17 years Peter's senior. She takes him to bed, but their relationship isn't overtly sexual. They bond over the chips stacked against him and the ways the world has wronged them.
While Agnes doesn't initially exhibit any signs of her own mental illness, she is easily caught up in Peter's panic. Her cultural contagion feels just as applicable today as it did nearly 25 years ago in a political climate where polarization works. We're all just trying to survive. Windy City Times - Highly Recommended. With Bug, Lett's is implying that love, desire and belief can be as contagions as any vermin infestation or deadly virus.
And Bug is also horrifyingly topical, especially with so many conspiracy theories and untruths shared locally and globally on social media. Steppenwolf's Bug will truly haunt you. Time Out Chicago - Highly Recommended. Coon and Smallwood's performances are perfectly calibrated for Cromer's deliberate pacing and eye for quietude. They're flinty and lived-in, with a dry sense of wit-the play is very funny-and a tight lid on their feelings.
An expert at navigating between strength and vulnerability, Coon never oversells Agnes's loneliness or longing; those emotions just seem to ooze out of her pores. And Smallwood's reasonable tone is as unsettling as wild-eyed raving.
That the actor is black gives added dimension to Peter's paranoia. The slow burn of the script and performances build to a kind of ambush. By the time you realize how bad things have gotten, it's far too late-a sensation that audiences today might find scarily familiar. Chicago On the Aisle - Recommended. Remarkably enough, though Letts is a longtime ensemble member at Steppenwolf, the current production is the company's first staging of "Bug," which had its premiere in London in and opened for the first time in Chicago five years later at A Red Orchid Theatre.
It's pretty raw stuff, as grim as it is bizarre, like watching two souls caught in a drainage swirl, plunging toward oblivion. Stage and Cinema - Recommended. More to our sorrow than satisfaction, Bug has aged terribly well.
Splash Magazine - Highly Recommended. From the get-go, a distinct sense of unease permeates the atmosphere, despite the elaborately casual grace of the performers.
As the action progresses, and paranoia infests the protagonists, we bear witness to the destruction of mentation, of human connections, and ultimately of all sensation. Hand in hand with the droning buzz of tension, accented by unusual intrusive sound effects, is a deeply black and oddball strain of absurdist humor: a truly "Steppenwolfian" melange. The skin-crawling play is unnerving, to say the least; however, the performers are outstanding, drawing you into every sensation that is hatching.
Tracy Letts was ahead of his time when he wrote this far-fetched story before the explosion of the internet. The assessment of government surveillance and paranoia schizophrenia is even more ominous in the world we live in today. There are many who will stay away from the current production on the stage at Steppenwolf Theatre just because of the title, "Bug".
For example, my wife opted not to attend as she was afraid of dreams about bugs. There are a number of people who are definitely in that position. This play, written by Steppenwolf's own Tracy Letts , right on the heels of his "Killer Joe" is a very nitty-gritty look at real people.
Yes, they may be different than the majority of those sitting in the audience watching with you, but then again, on theother hand, some of the peole sitting alongside you may have someo fhte same inner thoughts. Chicago Theatre Review - Highly Recommended. His production focuses on two lonely outcasts brought together by their mutual need for each other. The story binds Agnes and Peter together in a story of love and survival, set amidst a background of drugs, violence, paranoia, psychotic delusions, supposed secret government experiments and conspiracy theories.
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Highly Recommended. The revival of "Bug" comes at a time in American life when conspiracy theories abound and paranoia is part of the social air we breathe. The premises in "Bug" may come across as outlandish, but then again, consider the record shaped by the social media and warring political forces.
What was once disregarded as fanciful now appears worthy of consideration, and apprehension. So for many spectators "Bug" invites comparison with parallels in real life.
But "Bug" carves out a special place in the modern American theater canon primarily because it is a splendid dramatic foray into the fearsome unknown. No production can claim to be definitive version of this shifting narrative. The David Cromer version is not the last word in Letts's narrative but it remains a stand-alone classic. Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended. Engstrom and Key are perfectly cast in this quartet of veteran Chicago actors.
Randall Arney also has a brief and terrifying scene as a doctor. The Hawk Chicago - Highly Recommended. Bug may not be a new work, but it's reborn in In an interview, Letts mentions that he initially wrote the play in response to the paranoia following the Oklahoma City Bombing in
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