The Lucky Ones

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Reviewed by Jack Quinn
Theaterscene Publisher

Lia Romeo’s The Lucky Ones opens not with sentimentality but with shock. Vanessa, a forty-two-year-old actress, learns she has stage-four cancer from an oncologist who awkwardly admits, “I feel like I’m doing this badly. I’ve never done this before.” The bluntness lands like a punch, yet it disarms both Vanessa and the audience—an early signal that Romeo’s play will mine the uneasy humor that lives beside fear.

Purva Bedi gives a radiant, razor-edged performance as Vanessa, navigating the fine line between wit and terror with remarkable ease. Her arc—from performer’s bravado to existential free fall—feels entirely authentic. One moment she’s inventing clever blog titles (“Crazy Sexy Cancer” gets a knowing nod), the next she’s quietly confronting the void. Bedi’s ability to shift between control and collapse keeps the play emotionally alive.

As Janie, Danielle Skraastad, a forty-one-year-old high school drama teacher, begins with tender vigilance toward her newly diagnosed friend. Yet when Janie’s own love life rekindles through a dating app, her energy turns inward—so suddenly, in fact, that her emotional pivot verges on disbelief. Still, Skraastad plays it with aching honesty, showing how easily compassion and self-absorption can tangle when life insists on continuing.

David Carl, a chameleonic presence in nearly ten small roles, delivers each with crisp specificity and faultless comic timing. His transformations—from doctors to boyfriends to bar patrons—are clean and convincing, giving the piece buoyant texture. The only element that failed to fully land was the pre-recorded voice of the “Universe,” voiced by Christian Borle; it added conceptually but didn’t deepen the emotion.

Technically, the production shines. Transitions between hospital rooms, imagined spaces, a wine bar, and even a meditation app are fluid and clear. Jeff Croiter’s lighting, working within an intentionally sterile white environment, carves distinct moods with subtle precision. Brandon Bull’s sound design deserves special mention, particularly in the “Clear Mind” app sequence—a sly, hilarious sonic collage that devolves from guided serenity into anxious reformations and guilty intrusive thoughts.

Movement consultant Ogemi Udi choreographs the flashback dance sequence with infectious humor. When the two women relive their carefree twenties, the awkward, unselfconscious “Elaine from Seinfeld” energy earns well-deserved laughs. The set—its fold-out bed transforming seamlessly into a hospital frame—anchors the shifting reality with a credible lived-in feel.

Romeo’s dialogue is remarkably natural; you can hear people you know in these exchanges. The 80-minute, intermission-free structure breathes easily, allowing the friendship to unfold without interruption. Lines like, “You’re lucky that you have cancer,” and the immediate regret that follows, draw a mix of laughter and gasps—the sound of an audience caught between empathy and discomfort.

By the end, The Lucky Ones has quietly transformed. What began as a story about illness becomes something larger—a meditation on how love and friendship survive when certainty disappears. Whether Janie’s new romance will last, or Vanessa’s acceptance is truly serene, remains ambiguous. But the emotional truth lingers: friendship doesn’t begin with an agreement; it simply happens, and when it’s tested, it reveals who we really are.

The Lucky Ones is funny, humane, and deeply relatable—a play about mortality disguised as a conversation about love, and about the friends who stay, even when the words run out.

The Lucky Ones (through November 9, 2025)

Project Y Theatre Company

TheaterLab, 357 West 36th Street, 3rd Floor,  in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.theaterlabnyc.com

Running time: 80 minutes without an intermission