Five Things To Love About Little Bear Ridge Road

By THE ENTHUSIAST

1. The Couch

It is rare for The Enthusiast to look at the set for a Broadway show and think, “I could have done that myself”. Scott Pask (set designer for The Pillowman and Good Night & Good Luck, among many others ) goes absolutely minimal here, with a set comprised of nothing but a white couch on a circular white carpet. That’s it. And yet it somehow manages to match the power and drama of all the myriad sets that comprised the three-show Coast of Utopia (for which Pask also did the scenic design). As the actors move the couch from place to place throughout the play, it becomes everything from a living room hangout to a booth at a gay bar. Sublime.  

2. Typography

Most Broadway shows have a hidebound belief in legibility. When you stare at the marquee for, say, Mama Mia!, you don’t think to yourself, “I wonder what this musical is called?” Why? Because the towering block letters, set in the emphatic Poster Bodoni font, leave no room for doubt. The Little Bear Ridge Road marketing team, however, blithely sets that reliance on readability aside. Their hand-written, vaguely cursive choice for all of the text on their signage, reversed out against a black background, invites the viewer to stand for several minutes trying to decipher even a single sentence. The Enthusiast salutes this brave break with typographic timidity.

3. Laurie Metcalf

Little Bear Ridge Road was written specifically for Laurie Metcalf to celebrate her return to the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, where the play debuted in 2024. She wears the role of Sarah like a lovingly lived-in favorite sweater. What’s more, her line readings are constantly startling without being false or showy – she even gets a raucous laugh simply by giving two presses on the button of a Dustbuster. The Enthusiast would be remiss not to also pay homage to the direction of Joe Mantello; but it is perhaps the highest compliment to say that one is never conscious of the director’s hand. We feel, instead, that we are simply observing genuine moments from actual lives.

4. The Writing

It’s just so good. This is Samuel D. Hunter’s Broadway debut, but he’s won just about every theater award you can think of over the past several years – Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, Obie, the list goes on and on – and you can see why. He has a terrific ear for dialogue that’s smart without ever feeling contrived, and he delivers a coup de théâtre in the show’s final scene when the craft and quality of a manuscript that Paulette reads out loud to Sarah suddenly reveals the immense talent of an individual we had little hope for up to that point.

5. The Closing Role

After spending the better part of 90 minutes with just three characters (Sarah, her nephew Ethan, and Ethan’s friend James), a fourth character, Paulette, suddenly takes the stage for the last five minutes of the play.  Not only is her appearance brief, almost all of her stage time is spent reading from the marvelous manuscript mentioned above. What’s not to love, the Enthusiast asks? You spend 90 minutes sipping tea, reading the New York Review of Books, messaging your friends about some hilarious thing that Jeremy said at Sardi’s last week, then walk onstage, read from a sheet of paper, and a take a bow to uproarious applause. And, yes, The Enthusiast has a vague understanding that that’s not quite how it works; but isn’t it pretty to think so?

The Enthusiast (offbroadway@outlook.com) is the pen name of critic Michael Collins. He reports back only on what’s good, never what’s bad. But what he declines to praise can speak volumes.