A powerful look at the culture of toxic masculinity and the violence it can breed. Well done.

The BFG reads almost like music: with Darren, Chris, and Bill each competing verbally; overlapping their lines and fighting for dominance in the conversation. In a way, the play itself feels like a brutal wrestling match. It’s incredibly disturbing and packed full of truth. This play shines a bright light into the dark corners of hyper-masculinity and what it’s consequences can be. A must read.

Bykowski creates a trio of men who are each sympathetic in their own way, and in turn each of their weaknesses are exposed by the others. Women are absent, a couple defined for us by these men, as types -- an African-American who is fetishized and feared, the aloof, white cuckolder. These collegiate athletes channel their aggression and practice their dominance on the women they cannot understand and lives they feel they cannot control on a blow-up doll, and on each other. It is an aggressively physical and painfully eloquent parable for our time, or for all times.