Conspiracies Abound In BUG — Review

Within the past week, an online conspiracy dubbed “Conformity Gate” developed amongst a small subset of the Stranger Things fandom, theorizing that a “secret” final episode to the Netflix hit would be released on January 7. The theory spread quickly in certain corners of Twitter and TikTok, catching fire in the most delusional corners of an intense fanbase. 

Now, “Conformity Gate” is hardly the most high-profile example of a persistent rise in conspiratorial thinking in American culture. Nor is it close to the most dangerous—that list includes the Epstein files, the 2020 election, or the now-flagging but deeply influential QAnon movement. Yet the Stranger Things fracas points to how deeply embedded conspiracy theories have become within the United States, to the point where even minor concerns like a sci-fi family drama get swept in. 

Tracy Letts saw it coming. Written 11 years before his Pulitzer Prize-winning smash August: Osage County, Letts’ disturbing 1996 work Bug concerns a pair of outcasts, Agnes (Carrie Coon, of White Lotus and The Gilded Age) and Peter (Namir Smallwood of Pass Over) locked away together in seedy Oklahoma motel room. Agnes is fleeing her abusive ex-husband Jerry (Steve Key), none too successfully; Peter’s background is hazy. As the two grow closer, Agnes is soon sucked into Peter’s paranoid theorizing around government surveillance, poisonous technologies, and above all else: bugs. 

Peter sees bugs everywhere. In the walls; in the bed; even inside his own skin. Desperately, he claws them out, drawing blood. 

At first, Agnes doesn't see the bugs. In time, Peter opens up about his time in the army—first becoming sickened in Syria, then experimented on in a secret lab. Then one day, Agnes looks into Peter’s hair, and suddenly sees it: a bug. 

Like Killer Joe, another early Letts work, Bug is probably best known for its act two descent into surreality and shocking violence. But in this affecting Broadway revival, a transfer from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre running at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through February 8, director David Cromer puts his focus on the gentler side of Letts’ psychological study. (Well, at least for act one.) 

Certainly Letts has great empathy for its central pair, both of them deeply traumatized. Agnes and Peter’s bond grows sweetly, almost romantically at times, over a slow-burn first act. Smallwood hits a remarkable balance of vigor and vulnerability, finding delicate nuance beyond even what Letts’ text suggests. The text cannot quite carry the added weight of Peter now also existing as a Black body in America—but again, Smallwood has no trouble filling in those cracks with unspoken details. 

For Coon, this production’s slow emotional buildup proves trickier. Her Agnes is desperate, but also formidable; searching for comfort, but also whip-smart. Coon’s effortless power as a performer, sometimes works against her, though these contradictions also lie in the text. Agnes’ strength does make her eventual fall into delusion a little bit harder to believe. 

Cromer is looking to deepen Agnes and Peter’s psychology, probing beyond even a hint of stereotype. That comes with huge benefit, but also a cost—when the pair’s shared descent into delusion truly kicks off, it feels abrupt. As does the tonal shift. a quick toggle from hangout (act one) to psychodrama (act two). 

Once that descent begins, though, it’s a perverse  thrill to the end. Aided by a masterful set change (the decaying scenery is by Takeshi Kata, spookily lit by Heather Gilbert), Cromer expertly turns the dial up to 11 as Agnes becomes fully consumed by Peter’s conspiratorial mind. The late arrival of the mysterious Dr. Sweet, played with almost otherworldly strangeness by an excellent Randall Arney, elevates the proceedings to unnervingly heightened, wholly gripping heights.

Even as his characters destroy their world and themselves, Letts never loses sight of the strange comfort in a good conspiracy theory. (Many of the real-life examples Peter manically cites are, in fact, entirely true.) One unifying theory making sense of all the pain is, for these damaged souls, so much more comforting. Even if it means setting it all on fire. 

Bug is now in performance at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on West 47th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.