Recommended by Jarred Corona

Not so many years ago, in a way that shook the stand-up comedy world, Tig Notaro stepped out on stage for a set and told the world she had cancer. The audience laughed at first, and she repeated. Each time they laughed, you could hear an unease set in. She'd yet to make the news public. That night, as she laid out her tragedy, she nixed the "time" of "time + tragedy = comedy," and it was excellent. It was brave. It was funny. And then she won the battle. I thought of Tig while reading this. That's a compliment.

I fear I'm not allowed enough words, but I'll try to say it all. First, oh what I would've given to have seen this as a kid. A happy ever after for someone like me, and one without homophobic pain. This is hope. Second, this is a very funny show. The third time Cricket "sang," I absolutely lost it. Puppets, masks, doubling, actors staying on stage... This is my kind of show. It's wonderful. I sincerely hope it gets performed over and over again. Third, I also hope, one day, some animation studio is smart enough to adapt it.

Trapped animals bite hard and relish in the blood they draw. When hope is drained and pain bears down, when the world screams into your ears that it will not bend to be kind to you, sometimes it feels as if your only response can be to blow it all up. Capitalism causes untold suffering. It leads people to predatory MLMs, to anger, to us all bending our morals. There's excellent comedy in this grand ride of a show by John Bavoso, and a call to fix our world, but also a warning not to lose ourselves in the process.

"I swept the stage!"
Look, this is maybe one of the funniest pieces of theatre I've ever read. It seems custom made to made me grin and giggle. It truly made my night better, and I'd recommend to anyone who needs a smile in their life. The idea of seeing this on stage, though? I have a bit of a weird, high-pitched giggle that would maybe annoy other audience members, but I bet they'd be laughing enough to not hear any of that. An excellent job. I very much want to see this performed.

I wondered, for a moment, if the titular bird would be a prop operated by a stagehand or a puppet. I've determined that either way, the visual is quite funny. In an incredibly short space of time, Nora Louise Syran left me thinking about the ways in which the casually powerful swoop in and harm those aiming to give help and aid. "I daren't touch it, for it is filthy," they say, until the object of their ire is nearly dealt with in compassion, and then they come, touch, and break, and say, "Ah, that's done." All with a smile.

Oh how lost are we sinners, unmoored and flailing, broken by the world and by ourselves? Is the divine flood our punishment or our gift to escape? Are Noah and his fellows demons of pandemonium upon their boat or are they imperfect people doing all they can to survive? Come all ye sinners, Alice Josephs calls, come glance on the patriarchal hells of capitalism. There are great gags to relieve you as the pressure builds, but the flood will come. Is it freedom from contracts or delirium? It's damned good theatre is what it is.

How I long to take this script back with me in time and use it to help me speak my mind to everyone I have ever loved--friends, boyfriends, family. "I crave that gentleness," I would quote. And I would show the passage about being too vocal and pushy about my affections, that if I didn't speak it, it would be secret. This is a lovely show filled with lovely language. Filled with longing and hope and attempts at healing. With hoping an avoidant will choose to stay. Filled with all my hopes for love. It's wonderful.

Ahh, how do you not spoil something for which the twists on the expected are the best parts? (Though the light-hearted moments give that "best parts" description a run for its money.) Instead I'll say this: Christopher Plumridge builds and plays with expectations in a way where you're rarely left able to accurately predict what he'll do next. Here's a minor, vague spoiler--as superhero stories continue to dominate pop culture, this short show may be the sort of thing the genre needs to continue its staying power.

Look, I very much enjoyed the parody and the riffing and the absurdity of the plot. This is a very fun play, and I smiled a lot. But I simply have to point out that there's a joke around someone saying, "As you know..." and that joke? That joke is simply wonderful. It's fantastic. I will think about it for the rest of the night. I imagine any fellow fans of the movie Clue will quite enjoy Bruce Karp's "Murder, She Caused!," as they should.

Every now and then when you read a script, you can hear the voice of a specific actor just absolutely killing it in a role. In my mind, Natasha Lyonne smashed it out of the park. The dialogue here is grand. When Heather and Greg are on the same page, there's an easy feeling of nostalgia and happiness. You know, maybe we can reconnect. When they're in tension, there are severely biting monologues dripping with aggression and pain and longing. Actors lucky enough to stand in this show will have one helluva meal to enjoy.