Bus Stop – 17 May 2025

William Inge’s Bus Stop is a slice of life play set at a bus stop diner in the middle of a storm in Kansas City. The bus is stuck in the ice, and the passengers are stuck in the diner. The characters are all caught in a transitional state as well—they are somewhere between what they believe and what they’d like to believe. Grace (Cindy Cheung), who owns the diner, wants to be cold and unfeeling, but really takes advantage of the storm to have a tryst with the bus driver, Carl (David Shih), who wants to believe himself both a gentleman and a ladies man. Grace’s niece, Elma (Delphi Borich), is caught between the intelligence of an old soul and the naiveté of a school girl. She almost falls in love with Dr. Lyman (Rajesh Bose) a pedophile who wants to run away from his darker impulses (and, in this case, ultimately does). Then we’ve got Cherie (Midori Francis) who is trying to escape her captor who she later falls in love with and willingly skips town with, Bo (Michael Hsu Rosen), the captor who wans to marry a girl who doesn’t love him because he’s hurting her, his buddy Virgil (Moses Villarama) who wants to simultaneously fade into the background and be seen in the spotlight, and the local sheriff, Will (David Lee Huynh), who is caught between the letter of the law and his sense of morality.

At any given moment, there are typically three places to watch, with lighting (R. Lee Kennedy) guiding us to what is important. The moment that is most brightly lit is the only one where the characters are actually talking, but in other parts of Grace’s Diner, there are great moments taking place in each character’s silence. Midori Francis is particularly adept at showing Cherie thinking through her troubles with Bo in her silent moments when the audience’s focus is elsewhere. David Lee Huynh also shines in this regard. The scenic design (Peiyi Wong) does the absolute best that it can given the oddly shaped space, but still often only provides most audience members with a view of one side of the conversation. Despite its quirks, Bus Stop lives in its nuance and complexities, and, no matter who you can or can’t see in a particular moment, the voice inflection and constantly moving blocking (director: Jack Cummings III) make sure that nobody misses a moment.

Thematically, this show is about relishing in the moments where you are stuck and have nowhere to run away to. It is about the blessing that being stuck can be and the importance of taking time to think through decisions that are often made too hastily in other plays of the time. Instead of Cherie accepting that running away with Bo has to be her life, she gets the space to consider it. Just because she was swept off her feet, doesn’t mean she has to stay that way. And just because her first impulse was to run away from Bo’s love, doesn’t mean she has to do that either. Classic Stage Company, NAATCO, and Transport Group picked a play with incredible relevance to today’s world—because today it’s rare that we take a moment to stop and think—much less a day. In Bus Stop, that single day invites in a lot of changes, a lot of deeper knowledge of one another, and a lot of self reflection for all involved parties.

The last moment in the play was slightly puzzling to me in one respect. I thought there might have been underpinnings of love between Will and Virgil, especially because Virgil told Bo that he had a specific plan for what he was going to do after Bo and Cherie board the bus, but then after they had left revealed to Grace that he really had no idea. I was wondering if he was maybe planning to see if Will would be interested a man like him. The play didn’t resolve the tension that I perceived there; I wonder if I made it up. Similarly, I kept waiting for a moment when Bo would pronounce Cherie’s name correctly—a true sign of a changed man—and was surprised when that didn’t come. I think in these moments, William Inge steps in to remind the audience that a day’s worth of thinking is not enough time for everybody to make a massive leap or a complete an 180 degree change. In the real world, even more time is necessary for such things to take shape. Inge reminds us that taking it slow is an important part of making informed decisions, and taking it slower can lead to even better choices.

Stirring, thought provoking, engaging, and entertaining, Bus Stop paints a beautiful picture of what it means to take a day to think before rushing into things that sound one way in theory but in practice might be another. I enjoyed it immensely. It is the perfect reminder for today’s world of instant gratification that not everyone is exactly who they seem at first glance—there may be something dangerous in the innocuous or something touching in the overcompensating or something truthful in the journey.

I attended this performance on a press pass from Print Shop PR.