First loves tend to be so vivid in memory, and yet so difficult to render onstage. Saccharinity is all but inevitable, along with cliché-ridden shorthand to sketch awkward adolescents’ overtures. With Jonah, Rachel Bonds manages to skirt those perils, as director Danya Taymor deftly guides a quartet of gifted actors through a sequence of attachments.
The setting, the program tells us, is “a series of bedrooms” – in reality the same basic beige bedroom, stretched across the wide Pels stage by designer Wilson Chin. The time? “The past and the present. But everything is slippery” – indeed. Amith Chandrashaker and Kate Marvin, respectively charged with lighting and sound, mark transitions with sizzling flashes suggestive of shock treatment.
The setup may seem relatively straightforward on the surface, but the actors manage to plumb the depths of the diffracted text.
Gabby Beans (a standout in the recent Lincoln Center revival of The Skin of Our Teeth) plays the central, written-through character, Ana, first observed at a boarding school where she has found sanctuary – from what, will eventually be revealed.
The young Ana is brash, a smartmouth far street-savvier than Jonah (theatre-newbie Hagan Oliveras, phenomenal), a goofy, oversharing, possibly spectrum-y schoolmate. Jonah dogs Ana with puppyish fascination. Initially, her idea of reciprocal flirtation doesn’t extend much beyond an occasional, embarrassed “Shut up!” (plus an impulsive, fleeting flash). Her imagination, however, is working at full throttle. Ana shares with Jonah her movie-trope fantasies of romance, which typically end with “and then I guess we have sex” – an arena that’s as yet terra incognita for them both.
The fledgling lovers’ interactions come across as thoroughly believable and – since we’ve all been there at one point in our lives – unbelievably touching.
With a staticky whoosh, Jonah is supplanted by a slightly older, tougher, more aggressive male. As Danny, Samuel Henry Levine conveys “trouble” so convincingly, it’s often difficult to distinguish between the actor and the role. He’s discomfiting, to say the least. The script takes its time teasing out Danny’s history with Ana, leaving room for plenty of repugnance and unease.
Time has passed glintingly, and in our final vision of Ana, she’s holed up at what a fellow resident describes as “a farmhouse-y artist place.” It seems axiomatic that perceptive, imaginative young Ana would evolve into a celebrated author. Her fellow resident, geeky odd-duck Steven (John Zdrojeski), cautiously breaches Ana’s solitude to bring her a plate from the communal dinner: he’s concerned that she has been skipping the time-honored ritual. Ana is doing a lot of avoiding – has been for a very long time.
Beans’s aging-up happens so subtly, it feels like a slow-release magic trick. Where, within this distrustful, traumatized adult, does the feisty adolescent reside?
Bonds crafts a denouement as genuine and original as it is moving. Her focus – within an intentionally smudged time frame – is boundaries, those breached and those willingly erased. She brings a fresh perspective to often overworked dramatic themes (sexual assault, domestic abuse) and adroitly mixes in contemporary concerns. Relationships now come pre-set with clearer rules: Participants are required to seek permission and keep asking, to a sometimes silly but reassuring degree.
Jonah opened February 1, 2024, at the Laura Pels Theatre and runs through March 10. Tickets and information: roundabouttheatre.org
