Okay, bye!
Written and performed by Kaila Galinat; Directed by Jasmine K. Bernard
59E59 Theaters | 59 E 59th St, New York, NY 10022
July 8, 9, 13
A dissertation on raw courage and crystalline vulnerability, what unfolds in Ok, bye! is not simply a performance, but a living, breathing act of radical truth-telling, carved with humor and heartbreak from the everyday ruins of rejection. At the helm is Galinat, a Connecticut native now making her home and art in New York City, who approaches the work with a tenderness and clarity that belie the complexity of her subject matter: the aching, ongoing task of becoming.
Specifically, of becoming queer, becoming oneself, becoming a writer, becoming free. From the moment the lights rise it is clear that Galinat is leading us into deeply personal terrain. The show opens with a breakup so protracted, so excruciatingly domestic in its unfolding, that it ceases to be just “a breakup” and becomes something closer to a haunting. Imagine: a shared living room, December light filtering in, and an ex-boyfriend wrapping presents for everyone—everyone—but the person still sharing the couch with him. It’s this kind of quiet devastation that Galinat threads so expertly through the piece, trusting her audience to feel the full emotional weight without ever veering into sentimentality.
Yet it would be a mistake to pigeonhole Ok, bye! as a mere tale of romantic woe. No, Galinat is after something far more ambitious. In a patchwork of monologues, sharply drawn character sketches, and vivid multimedia flourishes—thanks to the projections of Christine Treuhold and Sammy Overton and an impressively textured sound design from Charlie Lockwood/Kid at the Corner—the show interrogates rejection in its many forms: not just from lovers, but from friends, therapists, and even, in one wryly tragicomic segment, a cat whose adoption proves to be more emotionally fraught than expected.
Among the most piercing vignettes is a recurring thread of therapists, each so exquisitely rendered they practically walk off the stage. With clinical detachment and unintentional hilarity, they lay bare their boundaries and projected arcs of care in a manner that is both deeply familiar and unsettling. These scenes are simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and sharply indicting of a mental health system that can too often turn vulnerability into transactional awkwardness. Anyone who has ever searched for the elusive “right fit” in a therapist will wince in recognition.
And yet, this is not a bleak show. There is sorrow, yes, and loss, and even despair—but there is also light, laughter, and profound insight. Galinat resists the tidy narrative of triumph over adversity; instead, she arrives at something subtler and more truthful. Rejection, she reminds us, is inevitable. The clouds roll in, regardless of the forecast. The real question—the only one that matters—is: How do we live with the weather?
In one of the show’s most moving final moments, Galinat embodies the quiet dignity of someone who has stopped waiting for the world to say yes—and started saying yes to themselves. It’s a gesture that calls to mind the wisdom of a therapist (a good one, at last): “How do we practice radical acceptance?” The answer, it turns out, is not to dodge rejection, but to meet it with curiosity, with courage, and, above all, with self-compassion.
Though Ok, bye! is a solo performance, its spirit is collaborative, reflective of a community of thinkers and artists grappling with the same questions. In its voice and visual sensibility, the show carries echoes of internet-savvy feminism of the late 2010s and early 2020s—sharp, self-aware, and unwilling to be neat. Galinat confesses that the role of “writer” is a new one, taken up somewhat unexpectedly. But from this seat, we say: take it up, and take it up proudly. You are not just a writer; you are a chronicler of queer resilience, a cartographer of emotional landscapes, a raconteur of the exquisite ordinary.
Under the assured direction of Jasmine K. Bernard, Galinat’s performance is engaging and deeply felt, as articulate in gesture and pacing as it is in language. One longs to see the show restaged in a larger venue deserving of its thematic nuance and multimedia ambition, one that will provide for a longer run for more people to see it, and savor it. One hopes this is only the beginning for Ok, bye! and for Galinat. As she moves further into her artistic journey, the slings and arrows will no doubt continue—but so, too, will the brave, beautiful work.
Ok, bye! played its last performance on July 13.
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Review by Tony Marinelli.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on July 17, 2025. All rights reserved.