Margin Notes: You & Me

You & Me

Courtnie Keaton as Mac and Brianne
Buishas as Chloe. Photo by Filip Rucewicz.

Seen on: Wednesday, 4/29/26.

Plot Summary

A year after college student Delilah opened fire on campus, killing eleven people before killing herself, friends of both the murderer and the deceased gather for a memorial at their local diner. Attendees include Delilah's twin sister Chloe, her ex-girlfriend Mac, and a movie star in town to research an upcoming role. Over the course of one day, Chloe continues her pursuit to uncover why her sister did what she did, and friends and enemies alike reveal damning truths along the way.

Thoughts:

I'll be honest, I wish I didn't have a visceral sense memory of watching the news about a mass shooting in my hometown, frantically calling my mom and friends to see if they were alive. I wish I didn't have a more recent memory of the same trauma with coworkers at my office last year. Horribly, I'm sure I'm not the only audience member reliving a memory like that while watching the characters onstage live through it, too. What's awful about an incident like this is not just that your world changes completely, irrevocably -- the solid ground you thought you knew now an unsteady raft in a churning ocean -- but how the world keeps going anyway. Life keeps going. You keep going. You may be frozen inside, but you're still breathing and eating and your eyes blink and your feet move you from place to place. Playwright and director Anthony M. Laura's work wrestles with that internal division: Chloe is unable to move on from the moment her sister destroyed the world, thinking if she can only pause that moment, or even rewind, she could find a way to, if not undo, at least understand what happened. But she's surrounded by people attempting to move forward with their lives, to find new paths and meaning beyond the worst thing that ever happened to them. Mac is leaving town, Leighton wants to go into politics, Paris is selling her family diner, Ellie is going to RADA, and Aurora has already left town and gotten engaged. And Theo, the man who gave Delilah the guns, is nowhere to be found. They're not all in the acceptance stage of their grief by any means, but Chloe is the only one perpetually lost in the bargaining stage.

Playwright/director/producer Laura has big ambitions. The cast of characters is large for a contemporary piece, focused not simply on Chloe and Mac's story, but also at least seven other threads. I love the drive to track the spidering cracks that stem out from a disaster of this nature. But what we see is not a town shattered, but instead a small friend group stuck in its own inability to process. Thematically it reminds me of last fall's let's talk about anything else, by Anthony Anello, but with a clumsier execution. Not all character arcs and plot threads shed equal light or power on the themes of the play; and the small two-hander scenes, trading off with each other, lead to awkward transitions, a lot of people walking through other scenes and pretending they're not, and a confusingly broken continuity as one conversation will seem to end, as a character has another scene with someone else, then return to where it left off, as if it were just a break. The actual Tetris of where each character is when, the timeline of their conversations, the entire relationship arcs, get more and more muddled as the play goes on, with too many denouements to tie up eight different threads after a somewhat bewildering climax of a breakdown monologue-aria. This play could be a ticking clock counting down to the memorial, and not a meandering stroll through a series of culs-de-sac. This day is the one-year anniversary of the worst day in everyone's life, and somehow that weight is missing from so many interactions.

The play is not without merit by any means. Some of the relationship dynamics are deliciously juicy and messy, particularly the uncomfortable nature of Chloe's fixation on her dead twin sister's girlfriend and Mac's projection of her feelings for Delilah onto Chloe. Riley's presumption, wrapped in a benevolent condescension, of starring in a movie about the tragedy, is tempered by Paris's plainspoken condemnation of appropriating someone else's pain. The guilt of both Mac and Leighton, Delilah's best friend, who think they might bear at least some of the guilt for not realizing where Delilah was headed. There is some very strong dialogue (Mac and Chloe's exchange, "Tell me I'm worthless." // "You first," will stick with me). But this play would really benefit from a dramaturg, someone to help mold the structure, coax out the air, and tighten it to its more resonant arcs while removing superfluous ones. Right now it feels over-bloated and scattered, and perhaps in need of a much less literal staging, both to allow for the short scene transitions, and to put the audience more fully in Chloe's headspace as she navigates her own grief and guilt, all while bearing the face of a murderer. And, as a side note, I think it's a mistake to utilizing an intermission to have one of the actors stand at the front of the stage belting songs at an audience less than a yard away. It's abrasive and doesn't allow for rest, either for the audience or performers, between the acts.

***

Running: Now playing at A.R.T./New York Theatres (Face to Face Films) - Opening: April 26, 2026. Closing: May 9, 2026.
Category: play
Length: 2 hours, 45 minutes, including intermission.

Creative Team

Playwright & Director: Anthony M. Laura

Assistant Director: Skylar D'Andrea

Composer: Philip Lauto
Team: Jonas Harrison (Scenic), Sarah Woods (Lighting), Philip Lauto (Sound), Mikayla Carleo (Costume), Daisy Torralba (Props), Jamie Monahan (Intimacy), Callie Stribling (Stage Manager), Filip Rucewicz (Photographer), Ron Lasko (Spin Cycle NYC) (Public Relations).
Cast: Brianne Buishas, Courtnie Keaton, Delano Allen, Cole Bellorgey, Cordelia Cornell, Winter Donnelly, Scarlett Gleason, Sydney Law, Isa Mellody, Susan Neuffer, Alexandra Rooney, Rheanna Salazar, Katia Mendoza, Allixandrya Jordynn, Gabe Calleja, Skylar D'Andrea, Candy Dato, Brooke Olivia Ginsberg, Ellivia Gold, Enza Grimm, Rachel Locke, Ben Sadowsky, Zoe Scott, Templar Grace Wright, Elisabeth Choi, Jolie Cook, Meg Joshi, Ethan Mathias, Téa Mazzetti, Chloe Robbin, Vaheed Talebian, Margot Weintraub. Featured Singer: Rose Hart

Brianne Buishas as Chloe, Alexandra Rooney as Ellie,
Sydney Law as Paris, Susan Neuffer as Anne, and
Courtnie Keaton as Mac. Photo by Filip Rucewicz.