Boy Gets Girl - Rebecca Gilman

This was probably one of my favorite plays [of this batch]. It had some themes that felt a little dated (like the idea that men are encouraged to essentially stalk women by pop culture standards of "romance") but despite that, I liked it.

The really unsettling/ compelling thing about this play was that it felt so banal for most of the time. Like, it's basically just about a lukewarm blind date for the first quarter, but it turns into this woman losing her entire life because the blind date starts stalking her/ threatening to kill her.

It's also good because it explores the gender dynamics of the people surrounding this woman. The men in her life feel really like, guilty by association and go above and beyond to be helpful. Her female assistant accidentally facilitates the stalker because she thought the woman was "being a bitch" to a nice guy at first. Then there's a lady cop, who like, is kind of torn between speaking as a woman or as a cop.

And honestly, the woman herself is not a saint. She's not a damsel, she's not someone you're totally sympathetic to at first. [she's a little cold, which is nice] But the playwright does a great job of very subtly and slowly turning this one-sided courtship into something very, very scary. Like, this man (who doesn't appear for most of the rest of the play) slowly kind of takes over then basically erases this woman's life. Just invisibly, from the sidelines. And he seems SO NORMAL. That's what the real art of this play is. It can feel a little bit preachy, but issue stuff aside, it puts this intensely mundane face on evil. It's such a slow burn, such a terrifying build, that it feels like you're really experiencing this woman's nightmare.

Lessons learned...
Remember to explore issues from every side. 
Remember to keep things simple. The story here is simple, but it's gripping. That's what matters.