The Lucky Ones
Written by Lia Romeo; Directed by Katie Birenboim
October 24th - November 9th
TheaterLab | 357 W 36th Street, New York, NY 10018
Photo Credit: Hokun Tsou
As a single woman who is BRCA2 positive, I have an awful feeling my end of days will resemble WIT. I have lived long enough to be on the receiving end of “last phone calls” when the sick friend knows they're saying good-bye even when you don't. And, I've looked back on final phone calls that neither of us knew would be our last more than once. Somewhere inside of us, we all want to get the ending right.
In The Lucky Ones Vanessa [Purva Bedi] is confronting a devastating illness. Janie [Danielle Skraastad] is beginning a new romance. As lifelong best friends, they’ve shared everything—until their lives start to pull them in different directions. The odd part is Janie thought she was moving in the exact direction Vanessa wanted her to go . . . onto a dating app!
Janie and Vanessa romp through profile pictures, profile blurbs and the ever dreaded responses. Why, oh why do we subject ourselves to platforms riddled with grotesque adolescent sexual responses!?! Because there may be one guy worth talking to? Prior to her diagnosis, Vanessa was dating 4, but they weren't the kind you invite to the hospital. Janie connects with one reasonable human on the app, and stays up at night texting while making it in to visit Vanessa daily. But when Janie thought Venessa would be pleased, she wasn’t. Vanessa was not at all happy that her best friend had seemingly moved on while she was getting sicker by the day. Wasn’t she the one who had seen Janie through her divorce? Cancer just isn’t fun.
That, of course, is an over simplification, but often it’s the pettiness that we don’t really mean that somehow slips out when we’re frightened, in pain and angry. In all honesty, there is likely nothing anyone can do for us to make us feel better because we’re so mad at the Universe that we could spit. We just strike out at whoever is nearest, the people who love us the most.
Bedi and Skraastad are totally in-sync. It’s a thrill to see two fine actors have meaty material. They ride this emotional rollercoaster pulling us along with them. Along for the ride, the man of a thousand faces, or at least 10 Bumble profiles, David Carl as Man. He’s the doctor, the meditation app, the DJ, the “one decent guy” and comic relief. WIT may have won a Pulitzer, but it really isn’t funny. And The Lucky Ones, this play about cancer is absolutely hysterical. While it may be cliche to say, “I laughed. I cried.” I truly did. Director, Katie Birenboim dealt with jump-cuts/montage simply and beautifully. The play flew by in the best of ways, a tribute to the skill of the entire creative team. Humans are messy, flawed creatures, and this production paints them accurately and beautifully.