They may not do much to encourage tourism to Idaho, but the plays of Samuel D. Hunter consistently do much to enrich our theatergoing lives. The latest example arrives on Broadway direct from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, thankfully with its cast and staging intact. At first glance, the production might seem a little small for the Great White Way, featuring only two main characters and a set design that can charitably be described as minimalistic. But as with such other works by the playwright as The Whale, A Case for the Existence of God, and Lewiston/Clarkston, Little Bear Ridge Road contains multitudes.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★★☆ review here.]
The 95-minute one-act takes place in, where else, the playwright’s home state, specifically the small town of Troy, in the pandemic years of 2020 through 2022. The main characters, Sarah (Laurie Metcalf) and Ethan (Micah Stock), are aunt and nephew, reunited after many years because of the death of Ethan’s father, Sarah’s brother. Ethan, a struggling writer who hasn’t managed to write anything significant in his chosen form of auto-fiction, has returned after living for several years in Seattle. He’s come back to settle the estate of his late father and hopefully reap the financial rewards of selling his home. But he’s still deeply resentful of his dad, who lapsed into methadone addiction and frequently tried to hit him up for money.
He’s also wary of his aunt, who’s worked for 40 years as a nurse in nearby Lewiston. He assumes that she disapproves of his being gay, her being religious and all.
It turns out that she’s an atheist. And that she’s much more open-minded than he gave her credit for.
“All this time you’ve thought I had an issue with you being gay,” she asks incredulously. “That’s the most interesting thing about you.”
Since it’s clear that Ethan doesn’t have the money to pay for a hotel for an extended period of time, he reluctantly accepts Sarah’s offer to stay with her for a few weeks. What starts out as a temporary arrangement goes on and on, especially when Ethan winds up barely making any money from the home sale. The two sit together every evening on Sarah’s large reclining couch, arguing about television shows they watch that neither seems to like. Eventually he discovers a secret she’s been keeping that alters the emotional dynamic considerably.
As does Ethan’s meeting with James (John Drea, terrific in a smaller role), a grad student specializing in astrophysics whom he meets for an app-arranged liaison at a local bar. James, who is as cheery and good-natured as Ethan is sullen and depressed, thinks of it as a date, while Ethan is looking for a more casual encounter. But the unlikely pair hit it off, with Ethan seeming to make his first stumbling steps toward happiness.
Little Bear Ridge Road traffics not in hugely dramatic situations but rather small, character-revealing moments that movingly depict the burgeoning warm relationship between the aunt and nephew, or at least one in which they tolerate each other despite their considerable differences. It’s apparent from the beginning that Ethan is severely damaged emotionally, as a result of both his dysfunctional upbringing and his inability to find his place in the world. Meanwhile, Sarah, who’s moved to her remote home because, as she puts it, “it suits me better not to be around people,” comes not only to accept their new living arrangement but find contentment in it.
Hunter is a master at creating these types of indelibly flawed characters, and his sensitive writing is beautifully complemented by Joe Mantello’s typically precise direction and the superb performances from the two leads. It’s no surprise that Metcalf proves outstanding in a role that plays to her strengths portraying acerbic, hard-edged types, but she invests her turn here with sly, mordant humor that fortunately alleviates the overall grimness. Stock, who proved his comic chops with his hilarious Tony-nominated performance in It’s Only a Play, is a revelation. His work here is on the broader side, his voice and mannerisms pitched to the extreme. But he boldly lays bare Ethan’s despair, especially in a moment toward the end in which he fully reveals a heartbreaking, childlike vulnerability.
As if to convey the smallness of the characters’ world, Scott Pask’s set design consists of nothing more than the oversized couch and a gray circular rug, even when the scene shifts to the bar in which Ethan and James meet. At first it feels constraining. But when a drama features characters this vividly drawn, sometimes that’s all the scenery you need.
Little Bear Ridge Road opened October 30, 2025, at the Booth Theatre and runs through February 15, 2026. Tickets and information: littlebearridgeroad.com
