Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – The destabilizing trauma of loss in Nick Payne’s THE UNBELIEVERS and Josep Maria Miró’s THE NICEST BODY EVER SEEN AROUND THESE PARTS

• By drediman
• November 6, 2026
• No Comments

This past week, I encountered a pair of Off-Broadway plays, both riveting, that meditated on the destabilizing trauma of loss on families and communities that survive them. As always, read on for thoughts on these two visceral, emotionally fraught nights at the theater.

THE UNBELIEVERS
Manhattan Theatre Club at New York City Center
Through November 29

Last night, Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of The Unbelievers (RECOMMENDED) by Nick Payne opened at New York City Center Stage 1. For Broadway theatergoers, Payne is perhaps best known for penning such plays as Constellations and Sea Wall/A Life (Sea Wall is actually written by Simon Stephens, A Life is Payne’s), both of which happen to have been vehicles for Jake Gyllenhaal. The playwright’s latest play is a portrait of one Miriam, a woman who refuses to accept the death of her teenage son, even years after he has gone missing. As played with unrelenting intensity and complicated rage by stage and screen actress Lauren Ambrose (how is she already middle aged?), the arguably mentally unstable Miriam retaliates with all of her being against loved ones who are desperate to move on from the unspeakable tragedy. Invariably, however, they are drawn back to it time and time again by her immense grief and sheer force of will. I had previously seen the play at London’s Royal Court Theatre, where I was affected by the unflashy austerity of director Marianne Elliott’s vision for it (an aesthetic I’m not used to from the renowned auteur). For its New York premiere, the play has been helmed by Knud Adams — an astute director whose work I’ve increasingly admired over the last decade — who imbues the piece with an enhanced sense of humanity and specificity, at least relative to Elliott’s staging, while at the same time smoothly handling Payne’s twitchy, at times disorienting jumps across time and space. Similarly, Ambrose gives an added dose of grace and transparency to her Mariam, certainly more than her counterpart across the pond (the equally but differently extraordinary Nicola Walker, in a black hole of a performance), while still being able to stare straight into the character’s turbulent soul to reveal contradictions and frighteningly unfathomable depths. Suffice to say, the play’s other roles — solidly played by a fine set of actors — are mere side players in relation to Miriam and her uncompromising, unwavering faith in her son’s existence.

THE NICEST BODY EVER SEEN AROUND THESE PARTS
PlayCo at 122CC
Through November 7

Then down at 122CC in the East Village, you’ll find The Nicest Body Ever Seen Around These Parts (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) by Catalan playwright Josep Maria Miró, as translated into English by Sharon Feldman. The work centers on the unresolved murder and mutilation of a 17-year-old boy and the psychological trauma it unleashes upon the local townspeople (e.g., the boy’s mother, the school principal, etc.), namely as it relates to shame/secrecy, desire, and prejudices that course unspokenly through their remote rural lives. In this respect, I was reminded of Max Wolf Friedlich’s hit new play The Holes, currently running just a few blocks away, which also artfully contemplates the way human impulses have a way of manifesting themselves in repressed societal environments. Unafraid to look squarely into the darker and more violent crevices of our humanity, Miró writing is pungent, vivid, and unapologetically sensual, calling to mind Wallace Shawn’s hallucinatory, morally ambiguous escapades that seem to uncover more questions than answers (for this work, Miró was awarded Spain’s National Prize for Dramatic Literature). The play’s New York premiere is being presented Off-Broadway by PlayCo in a production directed by Mei Ann Teo, who brilliantly unlocks the play’s knotted monologues with a stylish, haunting staging — featuring a pagan-like ring of wheat or tall grass (the creation of scenic designer Jian Jung), in the middle of which the aforementioned killing was fatefully executed — that is at once evocative and poetic. At the center of it all is the commanding, no-holds-barred performance by Rachel Crowl (their turn in Prince Faggot continues to stick with me), who tackles the text with ferocity, convincingly portraying a handful of townspeople — to prismatic Rashomon-like effect — with astonishing specificity and physicality. The candidly confessional quality of her performance looks audiences dead in the eyes with unnerving and unswerving directness. In short, it’s one of the very finest performances I’ve seen all year.