Babak Tafti (Photo: Ahron R. Foster)

 

Lowcountry

By Deirdre Donovan

In Lowcountry, playwright Abby Rosebrock delivers a razor-sharp romcom that dives headfirst into the emotional wreckage of modern love, and life on the margins of respectability. Under Jo Bonney's clear-eyed direction, what unfolds is not just a first date gone awry, but a raw, often hilarious exploration of psychic pain in the age of dating apps, court-mandated rehabilitation, and the quietly devastating search for connection in a broken world.

The play follows a struggling actress and gig worker who retreats to her rural hometown only to match-via Tinder-with a recently unshackled former high school teacher whose ankle monitor is barely off.

The core of Lowcountry is David (Babak Tafti) and Tally's (Jodi Balfour) first date-a scene that unfolds with equal parts awkwardness, vulnerability, and uneasy charm. What begins as a tentative exchange between two damaged souls quickly morphs into something far more layered. Tally, brittle and quick-witted, hides behind sarcasm and self-deprecation, while David, freshly unshackled from legal trouble (he now attends a court-mandated sex offender treatment group), radiates a mix of shame, politeness, and startling emotional candor. As they navigate the pitfalls of small talk, past trauma, and mutual attraction, their conversation veers from hilarious to harrowing in the span of a few beats.

David's community sponsor Paul (the excellent Keith Kuperer) steps onto the stage as a grounding force - a foil to David's chaotic world and Tally's wary heart. He represents the possibility of steadiness, human connection, and a life not defined by apps, court dates, or emotional baggage. That said, Paul has his own darkness, which adds more psychological depth and complexities to the play.

Director Jo Bonney handles the tonal shifts with subtlety, allowing the scene to breathe even as discomfort simmers beneath the surface. It's a masterclass in emotional tension-riveting not for any grand revelation, but for how painfully human and unpredictable every moment feels.

 

Babak Tafti, Jodi Balfour (Photo: Ahron R. Foster)

Both Tafti and Balfour bring remarkable nuance to their roles, grounding the play's sharp tonal pivots in lived-in, emotionally precise performances. Balfour, as Tally, layers her defensive humor with flashes of longing ("I'd really like to be barefoot and pregnant right now") and self-awareness ("I know it's my fault. . . I used to blame men, but. . ."), revealing the fragile hope beneath her cynicism. She doesn't chase likability, which makes her moments of raw honesty all the more affecting. Opposite her, Tafti portraying David gives a performance of understated power-carefully modulated and disarmingly tender. His pauses speak volumes, and his careful politeness reads not as passivity but as the muscle memory of someone who's spent years trying not to be a threat. Together, their chemistry is jagged but real, the kind that makes you lean forward with equal parts dread and fascination.

The set design (Arnulfo Maldonado), spare and unvarnished, mirrors the emotional rawness at the heart of David and Tally's first encounter. Maldonado creates a small-town space that feels both familiar and slightly off-kilter-a lived-in room with dim, practical lighting and mismatched furniture that suggests histories too tangled to tidy up. The intimacy of the setting forces the characters-and the audience-into close quarters, with no visual escape from the discomfort or electricity that pulses between them. Jo Bonney's direction takes full advantage of this confinement, using tight spatial blocking to underscore each shift in power or vulnerability. The result is a date that feels almost uncomfortably close, as though we're not watching a play, but eavesdropping on something painfully private and unresolved.

Jodi Balfour, Babak Tafti (Photo: Ahron R. Foster)

Lowcountry is not for the faint of heart. Beneath its sharp banter and romantic trappings lies a simmering current of violence-emotional, psychological, and at times physical-that makes for an often unsettling experience. Rosebrock doesn't sanitize the messiness of trauma or the power imbalances that can shape intimate encounters; instead, she leans into them, daring the audience to sit with discomfort. Some moments land like a gut punch, not because they are gratuitous, but because they are true-rendered with a kind of unflinching honesty. The play doesn't offer clean resolutions or moral absolutes, which may leave some viewers uneasy. But that unease is purposeful: Lowcountry invites us to question not just the characters' choices, but the structures-legal, emotional, and cultural-that constrict them.

Lowcountry is the kind of play that sneaks up on you-sharply funny at first glance, then unexpectedly devastating in its emotional undercurrents. Abby Rosebrock's script refuses easy moral lines or redemptive arcs, instead capturing the mess and fragility of two people trying, and often failing, to connect under the weight of past damage and present systems.

Jo Bonney's direction keeps the tone taut and unsentimental, while the performances and design elements work in concert to create a world where love, shame, and survival flicker in the same breath. What emerges is a play that feels both deeply personal and politically aware, a dark comedy with the guts to dwell in ambiguity-and the grace to let its characters remain fully, complicatedly human.

Lowcountry

At the Atlantic Theater Company, 336 W. 20^th St

Tickets: https://atlantictheater.org/production/lowcountry/

Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission