Bug – 03 January 2026

Tracy Letts’s brilliant psychological thriller Bug explores the intensity of loneliness and how easily someone experiencing it will lie to themselves if presented with someone or some thing to cleave onto. Showcasing an extreme situation, Bug portrays the depths of self harm that a lonely person will go to based on the faintest connection through the lens of a woman who has been hurt so badly that she abandons her self and her sanity to be with a man whose delusions are dangerous. Bug is a true masterpiece, and its spellbinding storytelling is cinematic and absorbing. The greatest feat of this grand work is that the characters remain firmly convinced of one reality, while the audience discerns another.

The story begins with Carrie Coon, who is absolutely captivating, in the role of Agnes. From the onset, Agnes is lonely despite her friendship with R.C. (Jennifer Engstrom), and lives in fear of the return of her violent ex husband Jerry (Steve Kay), who makes a startling appearance that leaves Agnes bleeding on the floor. Agnes recently began a friendship with a man named Peter, deftly portrayed by Namir Smallwood. Agnes’s relationship with Peter becomes all encompassing, as they bare their bodies and souls to one another. Peter begins to tell Agnes that he was the subject of military experimentation, when he is seized by invisible bugs that plague him constantly. Desperate to be liked, Agnes pretends to see the bugs, then convinces herself that she sees the bugs, then hurts her body looking for the bugs, then gets caught up into a dramatic whirlwind of attempting to exterminate the bugs. As Peter’s mental illness ratchets up, so does Agnes’s desire to keep pace. Before she knows it, she has rewired her brain to believe in the bugs as deeply as Peter does and she is determined to stay in the delusion with Peter rather than let doubt or sanity creep in. While Jerry’s abuse was physical, Peter’s is psychological. Both men would probably incorrectly believe that they can’t help it. One of the most striking examples of Peter’s abuse is that he removes the television so that, as Jerry points out, there is no way for Agnes to know what is going on in the outside world; Peter has to become Agnes’s whole world.

Agnes and Peter spend a lot of the play nude. At first, it felt to me like a gratuitous gesture to drum up attention and drive up ticket prices. As the play progressed, I began to see more clearly that the nudity was centered around vulnerability. The first thing they share is their physical bodies, then their histories, and then their madness. It’s an intimate dance, and they are the only people who can see it. They believe that they see everything about each other and they believe that no one else sees them the way they see each other. Yet they are also stripped of protection from each other and from the parasitic ways in which they feed on each other’s loneliness and insecurities. The nudity is symbolic to the audience and real to the characters, just like the delusions. The most fascinating element of any of this is that even at the end, Agnes and Peter believe themselves to be enlightened, clear-headed thinkers. When things don’t make sense, they make them make sense, convincing themselves and each other.

Director David Cromer has a particular style of scenic transitions in which the stage goes dark and there is a soundscape for a few minutes as time passes in the world of the characters. This technique was highly effective here, with Josh Schmidt’s helicopter soundscapes letting the audience experience a moment of delusion. What if Peter’s stories are all true? We, the audience, can hear a helicopter coming for him. Coming for us? These movements in time are agents of change as Peter and Agnes become more deeply entwined in the world of their creation and farther and farther from reality.

Bug is a story that seems far fetched—but it’s important with this show, as with any theatrical performance, to suspend your disbelief and let yourself into the world of the characters. The root of all of these delusions is pain—and a more or less healthy Agnes can get caught up in them just as easily as a Peter with mental health challenges. People delude themselves into staying in toxic, hurtful relationships every day. Is it so hard to believe that someone who is bitten by the love bug wouldn’t be willing to give up a little reality to gain some companionship? Bug distorts a welcome respite into a high stakes adventure, leaving viewers with a lot to think about, namely: how do we help people whose loneliness leaves them so desperately vulnerable and broken?

I attended this performance on a press pass from The Press Room.