I and You

American Theatre Magazine named Lauren Gunderson one of the most produced playwrights in America in 2015, her play, I and You, received the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award in 2014 and was produced in over 20 theaters nationwide. New Yorkers will have a chance to see this critically acclaimed play in Theater 59E59 directed by Sean Daniels.

I and You opens intensely when Anthony (Reggie D. White) comes to Caroline’s (Kayla Ferguson) bedroom to finish a school assignment on Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” Caroline spent months out of school because of her medical condition because of which she is in desperate need of a liver transplant. She communicates with her mother via texts and is not in the mood to spend time with any human being. Anthony is patient and persistent as he passionately talks about “Leaves of Grass” and is eager to share the beauty of the poetry with his partner for the assignment. Besides, the due date is tomorrow.      

Teenagers share their thoughts on family, music and death while bonding over this poster presentation. Caroline is skeptical at first but soon she starts to really appreciate Whitman’s poetry and to trust Anthony with her fears and dreams. At some point she feels so comfortable around him that she puts on her favorite song, jumps onto the bed and starts playing air keyboard. This strong moment of fun and trust is followed immediately by a spasm of intense pain, after which Caroline panics and hides under the blanket yelling at Anthony to stay and to go and then again to stay. This moment of weakness only brings them closer together.

This one-set, two-character play would be a typical adolescent story about friendship and love and fear of death if not for an unexpected twist in the end. I won’t reveal it because some of us like to be surprised at the theater. Some of my friends who I went to see the show with told me that because of this twist in the end they liked the show that much better. I can see how it might work: slowly escalating narration takes a huge jump and right before the end the “eject button” is pressed and a viewer who, might be falling asleep by this time, is thrown out of his comfortable chair, metaphorically speaking.

I and You is a smoothly constructed Trojan horse bearing a secret inside but it’s also a one trick pony. You leave the theater still under the strong impression of the sudden reveal. But was the journey to it that enjoyable? Did I laugh? Not much. And it wasn’t the case where everybody is falling of his or her chairs laughing and I’m sitting there with a straight face, but that nobody was laughing out loud. Neither did I feel particularly moved or nostalgic for my teen years. Even though the dialogues were dynamic, very well paced, and both actors were good, I still had trouble connecting to the play.