Another Bug Review

By Heather Hamby Maggs

I went to go see the Theatre Alliance of Winston-Salem's production of Bug last night and I was pleasantly surprised to be absolutely entralled the entire performance. I am not someone who is usually interested in non-musicals. They just don't entertain me. However, this was one of the most well acted performances I have seen in the Triad and the realism was what shocked and astounded me. The play centers around a waitress living in a seedy Oklahoma City motel and trying to avoid her abusive ex-husband. One night her good friend, RC, shows up with a man she just met and trying to talk the waitress, Agnes, into going to a party. When Agnes refuses, the mysterious man asks if he can stay with her. He ends up staying the night at the hotel and as their relationship develops, they have sex. Later that night, the man, Peter, wakes up with a bug crawling on him and there begins a series of questions to which there are no answers and even if there were, you aren't sure you would want to know them. Peter continues to see the bugs as they infest his body and the hotel room. Other characters can't see them. At first, Agnes can't but then she can. In a dizzy spiral of what is either delusional paranoia or the unraveling of a sick government experiment, the story of Bug unfolds. I won't give away the story, but for every bit that this scenerio sounds far-fetched, the actors carry it through with 100% believablity. There is not one weak performance and there is no one person deserving of more praise than another. Kelly Wallace is a powerful lead as Agnes and Mark March more than matches her energy as Peter. Cheryl Ann Roberts and Ken Ashford have two of the more stunning scenes: one of which features a shocking death and the other a head-to head showdown between two "realities." I can not for the life of me remember the name of the actor who played Agnes's ex-husband [it was Don Gunther], but menacing doesn't even begin to describe his portrayal. I was physically and emotionally disturbed each time he was present on stage, part of that can also be contributed to Kelly Wallace's fine acting. Jamie Lawson does a bang-up job directing this difficult piece while Jeff Driver's set is a force all its own. The stage crew got to have a lot of fun with this show, I can tell!