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An astonishingly assured piece of work, both bitingly funny and devastating beyond belief. Everett is a master of dialogue, her characters managing to accidentally eviscerate each other to a gasp-inducing degree through the very language of psychological healing and conflict avoidance. (And I mean inducing literal gasps - this play does a number on an audience!) And in her portrayal of young adults shaped by unthinkable trauma, whose lives are further complicated as their coping strategies keep backfiring, she comes pretty damn close to Voice of a Generation territory.

SSOS is a marvel, toggling effortlessly between laugh-out-loud moments of cringe comedy and devastating, soul-baring truth. Incisively skewering therapy-speak, the vocabulary of “healthy communication” and the barriers they place between people trying to truly connect, SSOS investigates how to talk to each other, and more importantly, what to say. Emily Everett’s revealing dialogue gradually exposes her characters’ neuroses, defenses, pretensions, fears, and deepest longings while remaining snappy and naturalistic. I’m thrilled to have had the privilege to see a reading of this play; I’ll be first in line for tickets for the inevitable, well-deserved first production.

I was lucky enough to see this play at the Valdez Theatre Conference. A razor-sharp comedy about the emotional inarticulateness surrounding intense emotions such as grief and anxiety, Everett springboards into a compassionate exploration of three people who don’t know how to reach each other in the ways they need to. With beautifully constructed dialogue and compelling characters, this dramatic comedy seamlessly shifts into a gut-punch in the last twenty minutes. Fantastic play!

I thought this was a fascinating look at how people deal differently with grief. I appreciate Everett letting us look in on the lives of these fully-fleshed characters.