Maybe we all haven’t hopped on a plane to chase a crush who we only “know” through DMs, but many of us have indeed been where protagonist Danny ends up in Wish You Were Here—  and no, I don’t mean Mullberry, Florida.  Because while that aggressively unremarkable small town may be the literal setting for most of this brand new play, the emotional “place” in which he spends the piece is certainly a landscape I myself could recognize intimately. I’m talking about finding one’s self in the unenviable position of being fundamentally mistaken about the nature of who you are to somebody— or, to put it another way, about the fundamental nature of a relationship and what possibilities it may contain. 

As writer and director, Jeremy Herbert memorably put it in a pre-show speech, this play is, unfortunately for him, one that was directly inspired by a specific personal experience. Fortunately for the audience, watching a man slowly discover that the woman he thought was worth crossing the country to pursue is largely uninterested is nowhere near as much of a downer as it sounds, even when the conditions in which Danny finds himself are just straight up cringeworthy. 

The play is at its best when Herbert leans into the humor of Danny’s plight, but spends so much of its runtime on cumbersome exposition and slice of life filler that its structural inelegances almost overshadow the effective emotional core. It also gets bogged down by the slow pace of the set changes that accompany just about every scenic transition while adding little aesthetically as compared to a more minimalistic approach. 

But while surface issues like these could easily be fixed in future productions, the piece may have a more fundamental flaw in the fact that main character Danny is nearly as aggressively uninteresting a protagonist as Mulberry is a city. Though I can see the appeal of making the character a relatable “everyman” type, Herbert seems to have directed actor Tim Crighton to be so dry and awkward in the part that he ceases to be a particularly compelling narrative presence, even when his situation is one I would otherwise be relatively sympathetic towards. 

Ironically, what most redeemed this piece for me was the charisma and complexity of its leading female character, Melody— n other words, the same force that propels poor Danny through the entire ill-fated ordeal. We never fully learn what makes her tick, but her emotional guardedness seems to spring from real psychological wounds rather than being a surface affectation—and her willingness to prioritize her own needs and feelings over those of the men in her life was a refreshing break from typical genre tropes. 

Soph Rubin-Siegel gives plenty of attitude and energy to the character, with her occasional tendency to overplay emotional moments not being nearly as detrimental as Crighton’s perpetual underacting. For the most part, the rest of the ensemble comes off somewhat better in roles that call for more humor and character while demanding less seriousness and stage time. Shauni Ramai gives a pleasantly bubbly performance as Melody’s messy coworker, Matt Walter makes a memorably menacing appearance as her bitter ex, and Kyle Huey is quite fun to watch as the current hookup who is understandably baffled by Danny’s presence. 

But Kyra Martin is actually the cast standout as Stilts, Danny’s spunky hometown friend and confidante. Martin inhabits the role with ease and a seemingly effortless comedic timing while landing the characters’ more grounded moments with just as much verisimilitude. For a while, I was hoping that Stilts might emerge as another potential love interest for Danny and redeem the play’s otherwise bleak romantic takeaway—but it’s much more fitting that she’s instead established as queer and grappling with her own disastrous love life. 

In the end, Herbert’s hard-won experiential insight into the perils of dating in the DM age gave Wish You Were Here a distinctive resonance for this disillusioned modern romantic— and if you’ve ever gone too far for a crush or been devastated by a ghosting Tinder match, it just may strike a chord with you too. Since I only caught the last performance of the show’s single weekend run, I regrettably can’t end this review with my usual sign off of suggesting that you buy a ticket to a future showing, though you should certainly keep an eye out for future productions by Bacchus Theatre Collective if edgy new work sounds like your vibe! 

To close out, then, perhaps I can just reverse my usual refrain and suggest that you not buy a plane ticket if you happen to be considering taking a trip to stalk your Instagram crush this holiday season. But as someone who has taken quite a few ill-advised plane trips over the years while in the midst of staging my own romantic tragedies…. no, I do not expect you to listen.

Full Credits:

Production Team:

Director: Jeremy Herbert
Playwright: Jeremy Herbert
Producers: Jeremy Herbert & Kyra Martin
Stage Manager: Jazmine Steele
Technical Director: Mike Corbisiero
Technical Consultant: Soph Rubin-Siegel
Light Board Operator: Mike Corbisiero
Sound Board Operator: Vladimir Boevers
Costume Consultant: Carolyn Schar
Graphic Designer: Jeremy Herbert
Social Media: Soph Rubin-Siegel
Run Crew: Kyle Kleckner
Additional Crew: Jenny Valiente
Props: Jazmine Steele
Set Designer: Kyra Martin

Cast:

Danny: Tim Crighton
Melody: Soph Rubin-Siegel
Tom: Kyle Huey
Stilts: Kyra Martin
Christine: Shauni Ramai

Troy & Others: Matt Walter
Lenny: Comall Mcfarlane
Additional Ensemble: Kyle Kleckner