Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood lead the creepy-crawly love story 'Bug' on Broadway

Tracy Letts's 1996 thriller play deals in conspiracy, delusion, and infestation, but it's also about the unlikely connection and trust between two troubled people.

Summary

• Bug is a psychological thriller play about the romance between a waitress and a war veteran who meet in a motel and fall into a spiral of delusion and conspiracy
• Actors Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood; playwright Tracy Letts; and director David Cromer discuss the love story at the play's heart and how it's evolved since the play's 1996 debut
• The current production marks Bug's Broadway debut and begins performances December 17

Bug is a play built to creep under your skin. With its talk of conspiracies, infestations, and violence, the softer side of Tracy Letts’s 1996 theatrical thriller, finally debuting on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on December 17, can sometimes get obscured.

But it’s there. The story is sparked, after all, by the meeting of two damaged people — Agnes White, an emotionally wounded waitress with a scary ex-husband, and Peter Evans, a troubled loner — in a shabby Oklahoma motel room.

“It’s a love story,” said Emmy and Tony Award nominee Carrie Coon, who plays Agnes and was last on Broadway in a 2012 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? revival opposite Letts. “Agnes is looking for connection, and she finds it in this drifter.”

Through the relationship, Agnes also discovers a source of comfort, excitement, and meaning — at least before it leads her down a dark path. Peter (Namir Smallwood) is a Gulf War veteran convinced he’s the subject of secret government experiments. He also believes the motel room is filled with insects, and Agnes is drawn ever deeper into his sticky web of delusion.

Smallwood, whose Broadway credits include Pass Over, acknowledged that Peter is a complicated character. He reprises his role, like the other four cast members, from a 2020 run with Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.

“Peter is a very intelligent guy who is very suspicious about a lot of things,” said Smallwood. “He’s trying to start something different. Meeting Agnes, he’s trying to be a normal-relationship kind of guy.”

Strange as may seems, Peter’s willingness to share the conspiracy theories infecting his brain is a risky leap. It’s the bridge to intimacy for this couple of outcasts. After all, it takes trust to reveal one’s heart and mind, especially the shadowy bits.

“We have to find trust in each other to be vulnerable,” Smallwood added, “to have the wherewithal to mention how we feel about certain things and not be judged. That’s the key to the relationship between these two characters.”

Bug was first seen in 1996 in London and premiered off Broadway in 2004. William Friedkin’s film adaptation followed in 2006. The story helped establish Letts’s reputation as a writer who tackles complex characters, dark emotional terrain, and unsettling social dynamics years before his 2008 Tony- and a Pulitzer-winning family saga August: Osage County.

“I was 30 years old when I wrote Bug, and now I’m 60 years old, and the world looks different to me,” said Letts. “Everything is different now — context, place, time, governments.”

When it comes to the conspiracy theories buzzing in Peter’s mind, that dynamic hasn’t changed. “The way we pass these crazy ideas from one person to another in this culture, it was true 30 years ago, but it's even more scarily true,” he added.

Tony winner David Cromer (The Band’s Visit; Good Night, and Good Luck) welcomed the chance to revisit the work with his Chicago cast. Randall Arney plays Dr. Sweet, Jennifer Engstrom is Agnes’s friend R.C., and Steve Key is Jerry Goss, Agnes’s menacing ex.

“I have an enormous amount of respect and affection for every character in this play,” Cromer said, “and for the world they live in.”

For all its dark streaks, Cromer is focused on what’s at Bug's core. “It’s a love story,” he said, echoing Coon. “Not all love stories are happy.”

Get Bug tickets now.

Gillian Russo contributed reporting for this story.

Photo credit: Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood in Bug in Chicago. (Photos by Michael Brosilow)