It seems like only yesterday when Capital T Theatre opened their production of Tracy Letts’s Killer Joe, which quickly became one of the hottest shows of the season, selling out seven full weeks of shows, with a standing ovation every night. The same team is back once again to tackle Killer Joe’s sister play, the psychotic and nerve-fraying Bug. Familiar to anyone who has seen to movie by Exorcist director William Friedkin, Bug follows a down-on-her-luck woman and the Gulf War veteran who suddenly appears in her life, talking of government conspiracies and having a sudden fascination with insect life.
Katie DeBuys as Agnes and Joey Hood as Peter, the couple at the heart of the piece, at first seem like regular folks. Despite having some major flaws, such as both characters addiction to drugs, Peter’s troubled military past, and Agnes’s angry ex-husband, they seem like folks you might meet on the street. They are, on the whole, likable people, and it’s this likability that allows them to suck you into their world, but once you’re there, you’ll find yourself stuck for the whole wild ride. When the frightened rollercoaster takes off in the beginning of act two, you’re glued to your seat as the track reaches across more and more treacherous terrain, to the very edges of sanity and into realms beyond. The scene transforms from a simple squalid apartment to the very depths of hell, aluminum foil coating the walls, eerie blue light the only illumination as the couple fall victim to paranoia and fear.
The duo of DeBuys and Hood is a fine one, with both showing radical dynamic range throughout the work. Debuys imbues her broken, downtrodden character with a flirty, sexy sassiness, building a tough outer shell which leaves just enough room for some weakness show through the cracks. Her descent into madness is 
soul crushing, as we have spent the first act falling in love with this flawed creature, only to have her swallowed up in a sea of paranoia. Hood comes on to the scene the picture of awkward charm, taking on the guise with his entire being, from his stutter, to this trembling hands, to his lip biting. He is able to slowly move us into his mad world, without telegraphing to what lengths he’s willing to go, and when he walks on to stage in Act 2, bloody and broken, his transformation is a shocking revelation.
Though the supporting cast try their best, on the whole they’re not given much do to. Kenneth Wayne Bradley plays his trademark dangerous alpha male as Agnes’s ex-con ex-husband “Goss”, waltzing on to stage with the boldness of a Leone villain, filling the entire space with his presence. Here, though, he is able to show another side adding a nice touch of humor to the proceedings, his billowing laugh echoing through theater. Melissa Recalde gives us a complete 180 from her role in last year’s Killer Joe, playing the drug-addicted, promiscuous, pierced lesbian mother, RC, Agnes's best friend and sometimes lover. Recalde seems to handle this role with panache, and though she may only be on stage for a few minutes of the play, she leaves a lasting impression. Ken Webster rounds out the ensemble, playing a stern doctor who may or may not be trying to help the 
couple, whose role is cut tragically short in the middle of Act 2. With more room to breathe, all of these roles could have become memorable, but the actors did the best they could with what they were given .
Though the two leads give amazing performances, and the sound, set, lighting design, and Mark Pickell's directing, are all brilliant, this production will probably not bring the huge crows and nightly ovations that its brother-play did. The play is far from bad, and is actually an excellent production, but it is so dark, so frightening, and so skin-crawlingly psychotic that many audiences will be turned off at once. It also contains some heavy adult content, even for a Tracy Letts play, with rampant drinking and drug use (almost every single character in the play smokes crack at least once), foul language, graphic violence, and full-frontal male and female nudity, making it an ill-fitting production for those with weak constitutions, weak hearts or weak stomachs For those brave enough to take the challenge, however, the experience is one you won’t soon forget, just be warned you might just leave the theater with itching skin and a sudden fear of aphids.
To purchase your tickets, and to find out more information about this and other Capital T productions, be sure to visit the Capital T website at capitalt.org.
Also, be sure to click here for the video trailer.
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