Bug

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Seen first Off Broadway in 2004, Tracy Lett’s Bug has now reached Broadway via the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production being presented by Manhattan Theatre Club. While Bug has the reputation as a thriller (and has all the elements,) David Cromer’s leisurely direction turns this into a character study instead. Michael Shannon’s electrifyingly crazed protagonist in the Off Broadway staging has given way to Namir Smallwood’s low-key insidious portrayal of Peter Evans, an Iraqi vet who has escaped from four years in an army hospital facility. The play which deals in conspiracy theories does seem more relevant now than two decades ago as there are so many more such theories spinning around us on a daily basis.

What the play does have going for it is Carrie Coon’s slow-boil performance as Agnes White who has the other major role. Ms. Coon as you might know is married to Mr. Letts and this the first time she has ever appeared in one of his plays in New York after becoming a bona fide star in The Leftovers, The Gilded Age and The White Lotus television series. Mr. Letts won the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best Play for August: Osage County in 2008. Bug has already been turned into a 2006 feature film by William Friedkin which captured Shannon’s unhinged performance.

Bug plunges us into the messy life of Agnes, a 44-year-old cocktail waitress who is addicted to cocaine which may have begun after the kidnapping of her six-year-old son nine years before. She is living in a motel on the outskirts of Oklahoma City in order to hide out from her abusive ex-husband Jerry (Steve Key) who has just gotten out of prison and pays her an uninvited visit. Lonely and depressed Agnes is ready for something when her lesbian friend R.C. (Jennifer Engstrom) who works with her at the club arrives to take her to a party with her new acquaintance Peter Evans (Smallwood), a homeless veteran who she has just met. When Peter decides not to go to the party, Agnes invites him to stay. Although he tells her very little about himself, she is impressed with his good manners and quietly restrained demeanor and they begin a romantic relationship.

Little by little, Peter’s paranoia which must have put him in the hospital escalates. First, he thinks he is being attacked by aphids which are under his skin. Then he convinces Agnes that she has them too. Next he is convinced that the government has experimented on him and has planted insect sacs inside of him. When R.C. and Jerry return, they do not see anything but Peter claims to be an expert on his condition. Agnes falls deeper and deeper into believing Peter’s conspiracy theories and what we see as paranoia. And then Dr. Sweet claiming to be Peter’s psychiatrist at the hospital puts in an appearance. As you might expect, none of this turns out well.

Both Coon and Smallwood are very convincing in their roles. However, the whole production seems underheated and too slow giving us time to think what about is going on. Smallwood’s low-key performance misses the intensity that the role offers and his descent into madness seems too measured and calculated. Coon is believable as a woman who goes along with another’s paranoia but we never see her get hysterical which would be one way to react to the events happening around her. However, making Peter African American with the references to the government’s Tuskegee experiments does add a new element of verisimilitude to the play.

The supporting cast seem more into their roles playing with an intensity that belies that of the play’s stars. Key as the brutal Jerry just out of two-years of prison makes it quite clear why Agnes divorced him. Engstrom’s R.C. is both tough and commanding of Agnes though after a certain point Agnes has switched her affiliation over to Peter. As the mysterious Dr Sweet, Randall Arney, a former artistic director of Steppenwolf from 1987 to 1995, is sinister as well as suave and oily.

Originally produced in New York at the tiny Barrow Street Theatre (now Greenwich House), the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre seems too big for the intimacy needed for the claustrophobic world created by Peter and Agnes. Takeshi Kata’s generic second rung motel room is suitable but not quite as shabby as one expects. However, having us look into the room on an angle so that we can see the bathroom and sink alcove as well as the bedroom and front door is a clever idea. The lighting by Heather Gilbert creates mood and atmosphere that the set lacks. The casual contemporary clothing by Sarah Laux is undistinguished but pitch-perfect for these characters. Joss Schmidt’s sound design makes good use of the approaching helicopter which seems to be coming ever nearer. The play has a sensational ending which is obviously the work of both set and lighting designer.

Tracy Letts’ Bug still remains engrossing theater even without feeling like a high-powered thriller. The cast led by Carrie Coon (who made her Broadway debut in 2012’s Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf?) and Namir Smallwood (last seen in New York in Pass Over in 2021 right at the end of the pandemic) is terrific at making us believe in the story and the characters. Conspiracy theories and paranoia are rife today in a way they weren’t in 1996 when the play was first produced in London so that it will speak to audiences in a new way.

Bug (through February 22, 2026)

Manhattan Theatre Club in association with Steppenwolf Theatre Company

For tickets, call 212-239-6200 or visit http://www.bugbroadway.com

Running time: two hours including one intermission