Bug

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Tracy Letts’ psycho-thriller, Bug doesn’t just play for the Curious Theatre Company at the Acoma Center. It explodes with visual lightening and roaring thunder. Directed by Chip Walton, Bug is probably the most tightly-woven production Curious Theatre has ever mounted.

Chris Reid and Kendra Crain McGovern in a scene from Bug at Curious Theatre Company. Photo by Michael Ensminger

Tightly woven not only with direction, and artistic expertise by five superb actors, but tightly woven with a detailed set design by Charles Dean Packard, lighting design by Shannon McKinney and sound design by Brian Freeland. So tightly woven together, so integrated, it is difficult to determine where one stops and the other begins. They feed into and off each other weaving a pattern of oneness.

Bug comes frequently described as an exploration of governmental conspiracies, how they affect us, and where they come from. Conspiracy isn’t the big news here or isn’t even the scariest part of this event.

From the beginning of time, from the time there were more than two people living on this earth, conspiracy settled into the heart of human nature. Wherever there are two or more, conspiracy exists whether it be in a family group, an organization, a company, or government, conspiracy roams freely. Sometimes it is just for fun, but most of the time it has to do with power, control, and authority. There have been several anxious ridden rumors concerning the American Government. Some have been proven true. Most haven’t, and just can’t be proven one way or another, at least not to date. They continue to stalk the shadows. If fed consistently, the thoughts create a gripping paranoia growing into a controlling beast.

Peter (Chris Reid) discovers this. A Gulf War survivor, he spent four years in a hospital diagnosed with paranoid-schizophrenia. In the deepest cavern of his mind, he is convinced the government experiments on him with bugs. He finds his way to a small town in Oklahoma, to a Honky Tonk bar where he meets RC (Kendra Crain McGovern), who finds him strange but harmless. Allowing him to tag along, she visits a co-worker and friend, Agnes (Rhonda Lee Brown) in her motel room.

Living in her own fearful anxiety, Agnes has just had her chains rattled. Having escaped the clutches of her abusive ex-husband, Jerry Goss (Michael McNeil), imaginary shackles chain her to the past. He has just been released from a two-year stint in prison for armed robbery. She knows he will be looking for her. Her phone has just rung. No one says anything. Once is hardly enough to think twice about, but the phone rings several times. Each time she answers with no one speaking, her skin crawls with deepened anxiety.

Brown gives a stunning performance wearing anxiety, loneliness, fear, and gullible vulnerability on her shoulder. Sometimes that’s all she wears, but her transformation comes easily and smoothly. Brown has control of Agnes even though Agnes gives into her needs and wants without thinking.Neither RC nor Agnes knows anything about the illusive Peter. For the moment it doesn’t matter. He decides to stay. Agnes welcomes the company.

This is the part that should command most of the attention for this play. How people fall prey to giving away their power and control when vulnerability crowds out rational thinking in light of sheer unadulterated loneliness.

Agnes thinks it would be fun to have Peter stay. It would be fun for them to have sex. Her needs scream from her bare body. She certainly doesn’t have much positive influence in her life. A battered wife, she lost her son in a grocery store when he was six. One minute he was in the cart, the next he was gone. Now she relies heavily on booze, grass, and coke to keep her going. Until now. Now she has a strange bewildering man in her motel room. Nothing else matters at the moment, except he’s a man. Everything is cool until he discovers an aphid in the bed. If there is one, there has to be more. She has difficulty seeing the tiny bug, but he can. Whether she actually sees it, or convinces herself to see it is up for grabs.

Brown and Reid perform a good portion of the play in the nude. Because of the intensity of escalating mental developments within the characters, the nudity actually adds to the telling of the story, and in no way detracts from it.

McNeil’s brutal character is as well chiseled as Jerry’s awkward, vicious ownership of Agnes is displayed.

Act II opens with the motel room looking more like a scientific lab with flypaper, bug catchers, sprays, and microscope invading every available space. Peter, now convinced bugs were implanted in his blood, has Agnes at his mercy. Even though a doctor has deduced her wounded scratches are self-inflected, she has given ownership to Peter.

One of the most stunning performances comes with John Arp as Dr. Sweet, Peter’s Army doctor, who manages to get into the motel room with the assistance of Jerry. Sweet genuinely wants to help Peter, but Peter can neither see it nor hear it. A scuffle takes place, and Sweet is mortally stabbed.

There is a technique actors can learn permitting them to play dead on stage without any sign of breathing. It is a difficult technique to master, that few are able to maintain. As Sweet lies across the bed, there is only slight indication of Arp’s breathing. That has to be watched carefully for very slight movement of his chest. He has nearly mastered an extraordinary technique that for the most part will go unnoticed because of the emotional desperation escalating between Peter and Agnes.

Freeland’s eerie sound effects begin minutes before the play actually begins. Under the din of audience conversation, comes the sound of railroad cars lurching and rumbling. Country Western music and brash rock tie scenes together, along with horns honking, trucks rumbling by, and helicopters whirling overhead. The sound effects alone play as a frenzied concerto swirling within the universe telling the story of entrapment in a lone motel room.

Letts constructed the characterizations, defining them with a hellish realism, at the same time leaving truth hanging as a brash dangling participle when hung out to dry. The conclusion of the play is a mind-numbing exhaustive, breath-taking experience leaving some audience members bug-eyed wondering what it was they had just seen. What is it saying and why? The nudity will be talked about, but that is superfluous. Conspiracies will be discussed, but they’re a common topic anyway. The scary part is how vulnerable, apathetic, lonely human beings can be entrapped into a false sense of reality, and then make it exist simply because they want to belong, want to be needed.

Above and beyond the impact of Letts’ play, are the masterful performances by Reid, Brown, Arp, McNeil, and McGovern. They wear their characters snug, honest, and true.