Carrie Coon, Namir Smallwood triumph in Steppenwolf’s definitive staging of ‘Bug’

When Tracy Letts’ “Bug” opened at A Red Orchid Theatre in August, 2001 it was a seminal moment in theater. Seven years before he picked up a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize for “August: Osage County,” Letts was known primarily as the author of “Killer Joe.”

Like that earlier work, “Bug” was steeped in violence and gruesome, black-hole dark humor. It was also impossible to look away from, even when the protagonist (played by a pre-Oscar nominee Michael Shannon) yanked out a tooth with a socket wrench so he could fumigate the aphids he felt burrowing into his gums.

The danger suffusing the rundown Oklahoma motel where “Bug” unfolds remains intact in Tony-winning director David Cromer’s magnificent revival for Steppenwolf Theatre. But “Bug” has changed over the past 20 years. Or rather, the context provided by the world it lives in has changed. Almost two decades after its debut, “Bug” has layers of malevolence that weren’t there in a pre-9/11, pre-Sandy Hook world. It’s more disturbing than ever.

The plot is part noir, part love story, part psychological thriller. Agnes (Carrie Coon) lives on the margins of society in the grimy hotel, spending her days getting high and mourning the son she lost when he was abducted from a supermarket years earlier. Her ex-con ex-husband Jerry (Steve Key) is an unwelcome guest. He tried to kill her once. He’ll probably try again. When Agnes’ best friend R.C. (Jennifer Engstrom, whose blowsy majesty will make you wish R.C. was your best friend, too) introduces her to the quiet, thoughtful Peter (Namir Smallwood), Agnes sees both a safety line and a man whose kindness soothes like a balm in Gilead.

Peter’s own demons are gradually revealed. Scrape the top of his obsession with cleanliness and you find an infestation of paranoia. He’s certain he’s been implanted with larval egg sacs and computer chips. Maybe the CIA did it. Maybe the FBI. Maybe the military. Whatever the case, “they” are trying to control his mind. It doesn’t take much to convince Agnes that they are both in imminent danger.

Michael Brosilow

“Bug” hits on three levels. First, it’s a fantastic thriller. The threat of bloodshed constantly looms, but every time it erupts, it’s shocking. Second, it’s a love story that’ll gladden the hearts of those who hate rom-coms and would rather suffer ringworm than sit through the likes of “Love, Actually.” Third, it is a ruthless dive into human anxiety spreading like a virus in a cruel, chaotic world. Letts’ drags the audience down by the throat.

It’s tough to overstate the depth and breadth and sheer emotional intensity that Coon and Smallwood bring to their roles. Peter is a threat to himself and to others, at once vulnerable and menacing. Agnes’ sorrow – bone deep and inconsolable — seems to live in her body. Every move, gesture, word and sigh signifies to the kind of loss you don’t come back from.

If Peter’s DIY dentistry scene doesn’t get you, Cromer’s design team will. Scenic designer Takeshi Kata’s generically low-rent Oklahoma motel is a place where you don’t want to know what’s festering beneath the mattress pad. There’s a stunning reveal as Agnes and Peter’s catastrophic descent enters the home stretch. Kata turns the nondescript room into an elaborate, dazzling manifestation of a mind controlled by fear.

Sound designer Josh Schmidt permeates the atmosphere with mundane sounds - the hum of an air conditioner, the chirp of a smoke detector – that sound somehow threatening. Intimacy designer Tonia Sina ensures the play’s casual nudity deepens the characters and furthers the story. Matt Hawkins’ fight choreography is wince-inducingly realistic.

There’s relief in the knowledge that most of us aren’t like Peter. We don’t lie awake nights worrying that the CIA is controlling our minds while the FBI plants larvae in our molars. But Letts knows that we all sometimes lie awake nonetheless. “Bug” taps into the primal fears of our scariest nights.

It’s tempting to dismiss Peter as a schizophrenic — that’s the diagnosis the mysterious Dr. Sweet (Randall Arney) provides. Maybe Peter never grew out of the fear that monsters lurk under the bed.

But if you look at the years since “Bug” premiered, monsters that once seemed unthinkable are now not uncommon. We’ve seen seas rise and coastlines crumble like rotting teeth. We’ve seen glaciers melt in Antarctica and drought turn California into a tinder box and so-called 100-year storms annually wreak devastation across the globe. We’ve learned that sometimes, we can’t tell if we’re talking to a human or a bot. In the face of all this, we’ve seen anxiety rise.

Bug” is a snapshot of anxiety taken to extremes. Peter might be paranoid but in Letts’ world, it’s not that simple. And as the old saw goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean something’s isn’t out to get you.

Catey Sullivan is a local freelance writer.

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