DILARIA May Just Be One of The Wildest Plays You Will See This Summer — Review

Among the most delightful theatrical experiences of 2024 was Julia Randall’s dementedly funny play Little Miss Ransom. Staged in the subterranean Bushwick home of rising company Adult Film, Ransom tackled America’s ever-growing obsessions around true crime and conspiracy theory with a perverse wit. Randall’s mind is a dark one—indeed, Ransom ended, appropriately (and satisfyingly), on a note of gruesome brutality. 

Now, Randall has crossed the river to Union Square, where her new play Dilaria makes its world premiere off-Broadway at DR2 through August 3. Thankfully, the playwright’s messed-up proclivities have survived the trip intact. Dilaria is skillfully immoral, a lively dissection of our grotesque attention economy. While it never quite reaches the manic heights of Ransom, this work nonetheless announces an exciting new talent.

Dilaria centers on a pair of college besties, Dilaria (Ella Stiller) and Georgia (Chiara Aurelia), now both living in New York. Dilaria is cruel and controlling, while Georgia is seemingly under her spell. (Do these two need to fight, or just fuck?) After the death of a mutual friend prompts an outpouring of love on social media, the imperious Dilaria seizes upon a new tactic for online adoration: staging her own death. But this time, Georgia decides her vicious friend has gone too far.

The character of Dilaria is a larger-than-life figure, though only barely—her particular brand of narcissism will be sadly familiar to most, along with a penchant for spinning grand, self-serving fictions. The role demands a domineering and intimidatingly charismatic presence, and a sharp Stiller is most of the way there, though she’s not quite as powerful as Randall’s script demands. 

The most precise comedic work comes from Christopher Briney (of Amazon’s The Summer I Turned Pretty), who is laugh-out-loud funny as Noah, Dilaria’s unexpectedly wise and empathetic booty-call. Briney’s dopey smile at Georgia finally pronouncing his name right (it’s “No-AH”) is a golden bit of character-based humor. Aurelia feels more uncertain as Georgia, but that’s more a writing issue—Georgia’s own personal brand of sadism takes a bit too long to come to the fore. 

As a whole, the play builds too slowly, and should reach manic heights of heinousness faster than it does. Though director Alex Keegan guides her actors well, she never quite hits the tone of disturbed perversity that Randall’s writing demands. But when we do finally reach a final blow-out, it’s a glorious denouement, hitting that perfect balance of tragically horny and gruesomely macabre. 

‍Dilaria is now in performance through August 3, 2025. For tickets and more information, visit here.