It’s almost a meet-cute, the way Bug’s two leads come together: Agnes’ (Cassie Jo Fastabend) friend RC (Katrina Mattson) comes around to her place to a pregame before a party, and she brings along a guy she just met at a club, Peter (Bil Nowicki). When it comes time to leave for the party, Peter says that he’d rather just stay with Agnes. Maybe it’s because he can sense that they’re both lonely, or that they’re both on the run — Agnes, from her abusive ex-husband (Joshua Johnson), and Peter, from some more mysterious threats.
Maybe it’s all the cocaine they’re smoking.
At any rate, Peter and Agnes become bound to one another in the way that only people in dire straits can. It’s not long after they meet that Peter starts to see bugs in Agnes’ room, and soon enough, Agnes thinks she might see them, too. Bug, written by Tracy Letts, and directed for Tacoma Little Theatre by Blake R. York, has a reputation for its intensity, and it’s well-earned: once tensions begin to mount, they never let up, building to a manic crescendo as we helplessly watch two people spiral into madness.
Having already seen the film adaptation (directed by the late, great William Friedkin), I was familiar with the twists and turns of the plot, and was better able to savor the pitch-black comedy underlying the story. Bug elicits plenty of nervous laughter from the audience, as they witness some truly horrifying events, but there are also audacious moments of humor (near the end, Letts makes a choice so antithetical to conventional storytelling wisdom that it nearly breaks the play, and is all the funnier for it).
At the center of the play — the bloody, beating heart — are two brave, tragic, and bracing performances from Fastabend and Nowicki. Bug asks a great deal from these actors, in ways both physical and emotional, and they more than rise to the occasion. Nowicki believably introduces Peter as the kind of outcast who may very well be harmless, if socially inept, only to casually find loose screws in every gesture and offhand comment. Fastabend imbues Agnes with the kind of longing that makes her all too willing to follow Peter down his various rabbit holes. They are able to accomplish far more together than they ever would apart, which would be perfect if their connection were based in romance, rather than paranoia.
Letts wrote Bug in the mid-1990s, when conspiracy theories were the domain of Oliver Stone, bigfoot hunters, late-night call-in radio shows, and The X-Files. Conspiracy theorists suitably found their homes on the fringes of society. It probably goes without saying that the ways in which we relate to conspiracy theories have drastically changed, and to watch Bug in the year 2025 feels more immediate than it ever could have before.
When Peter starts name-dropping Agent Orange and the Bilderberg Meetings, there’s a decent chance he’ll sound less like a random nutjob and more like a family member or childhood friend. And when Agnes begins to tug at the loose threads in the fabric of reality, you might feel a greater sympathy for wanting to believe there’s a more profound meaning beyond what we’re able to understand. In conspiracy theories, there are no dead ends or disappointments, and every question has an answer.
If Bug had a mouth, it would froth. Steel your nerves and go see it.
Photos by Dennis K Photography.
WHAT:
Bug
WHEN:
7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through May 11
WHERE:
Tacoma Little Theatre, 210 N. I St., Tacoma
COST:
$22-$29, “Pay What You Can” May 8
LEARN MORE:
tacomalittletheatre.com
(253) 272-2281