Review: Someone Spectacular Translates the Individual Experience of Grief Into the Universal

Grief and loss are among the theater’s most enduring themes, but Doménica Feraud’s someone spectacular adds a new twist. Six individuals go through group grief counseling to confront the question “How can someone suddenly be gone?” and then their therapist vanishes without a word, leaving them to figure out yet another loss.

The play begins with audience members sitting in uncomfortable silence along with the six characters, who anxiously wait for their counselor. The delay breaks down the fourth wall as we’re left wondering when things will begin. Eventually, one member of the grief counseling group speaks up.

They includes Nelle (Alison Cimmet), a busy and wound-up-tight mom in workout gear; Jude (Delia Cunningham), a nervous but politely assertive college-aged girl; Thom (Damian Young), a raunchy but slightly rigid comedic relief; Evelyn (Gamze Ceylan), the honorary mother of the group; Julian (Shakur Tolliver), a timid but friendly young man who worries his loss is less profound than that of the others; and Lily (Ana Cruz Kayne), the playwright’s onstage iteration of her younger self, who proudly balances the dichotomy of edgy, angst-ridden youth with brief breakthroughs of musical theater nerdiness, quoting lyrics from Into the Woods.

At first, the unmoderated meeting is pure chaos, with Thom repeatedly suggesting that they pass the time playing “Fuck, Marry, Kill,” and Jude repeatedly reminding them of the rules and boundaries that had been established by their therapist, Beth, in previous meetings. After some bickering and awkward apologies, the group has nothing left to do but admit that Beth may never arrive, and this realization triggers in them all the very feeling that brought them into the office: the fear of unexpected loss, of sudden abandonment, of being left with nothing but the idea of someone they saw just last week.

The constant conversation shifts between the characters with little or no segue is a realistic touch, but there were brief moments throughout the play where the delivery of the dialogue felt unnatural and clunky. Still, this did not take away from the overall acting performances in the play, which were stellar across the board. Kayne delivers an all-too-real portrayal of a panic attack, Young shows us an unbothered cool-guy exterior being slowly chipped away until his heartbroken sensitivity shines through, and Cunningham portrays a frazzled need for control that erupts in catharsis. Feraud and director Tatiana Pandiani’s pacing is strong and lively; behind all the mayhem is a steady progression of moving toward the climax.

The set (by dots) and costumes (by Siena Zoë Allen) an incredibly true-to-life canvas, with every prop going to good use. There’s a plastic kiddie table with beads on wire to fidget with, and Nelle leaves her half-drunk Starbucks cup on top of it at the beginning of the play, just as anyone would in a room with a circle of chairs and no side tables. Lighting designer Oona Curley’s  fluorescent lights above the stage paint a flickering, frenetic image that just by looking at them, conjures a faint buzzing hum (sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman).

Feraud’s someone spectacular offers the sobering, yet deeply uncomfortable realization that everyone must come to: often, there is no immediate resolution to grief, fear, and trauma, and if we all must carry it, it helps not to sit with it alone.