QZ hides hers behind a stoicism that begins to fray as she and Bryan confront the darkness in their past. All three characters in “The Few” bear unhealed emotional bruises.
Hunter, the author of the fine plays “A Bright New Boise” and “The Whale,” writes with unusual insight into, and empathy for, people whose lives have settled into sad stasis, or strategic withdrawal. Spacious bunker with comfortable bed, running water, tape deck. (“Looking for lady co-pilot to navigate end times. Punctuating the scenes in which the play’s three characters interact are funny-pitiful blasts from the answering machine on QZ’s cluttered desk: Truckers leaving the details of the ads they’d like to place. With Matthew’s ardent assistance, QZ has kept the publication going and turned it into a modestly profitable enterprise that now relies primarily on income from personal ads to scrape by. Lawrence, greets Bryan’s sudden return with a slightly surly air of irritation and suspicion. QZ, played with a lovely combination of grit and subterranean warmth by Ms. The play, at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, takes place in 1999, a few months before that big millennial change that didn’t turn out to be such a drama after all.
Hunter’s compassionate, gently hued drama about lonely lives, Matthew has found a refuge from a hostile world in the grungy trailer office where QZ (Tasha Lawrence) produces the newsletter that gives “The Few” its title, aimed at long-haul truckers who spend much of their lives in solitary transit. It’s the blinking alarm of somebody desperately hoping but not quite believing that he’ll be welcome - wherever it is he happens to be. The bright smile, which flashes frequently, seems less a signal of pleasure than a bid for affection. His high voice - more that of a preadolescent than a young adult - carries a note of pleading tension in it. His long arms end in hands that are forever darting around like little birds, making expressive gestures that suggest Matthew’s inability to fully articulate his feelings. Hunter, moves with the herky-jerky rhythm of a puppet whose strings are being pulled by someone a little woozy. He holds degrees in playwriting from NYU, The Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and Juilliard.Matthew, the chronically anxious 19-year-old played with consummate skill and grace by Gideon Glick in “The Few,” a new play by Samuel D. Hunter is a member of New Dramatists, an ensemble Playwright at Victory Gardens, a Core member of The Playwrights' Center, a member of Partial Comfort Productions, and is currently a Resident Playwright at Arena Stage. He has active commissions from LCT3, Steppenwolf, Playwrights Horizons, and MTC/Ars Nova. His work has been developed at The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, JAW West, and elsewhere. Hunter is the winner of a 2012 Whiting Writers Award, the 2013 Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the 2011 Sky Cooper Prize, and the 2008-2009 PONY Fellowship.
His plays have been produced by Playwrights Horizons, South Coast Rep, Victory Gardens, Woolly Mammoth, Denver Center Theatre Company, Clubbed Thumb,, and elsewhere. Hunter 's plays include The Whale (2013 Drama Desk Award, 2013 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play), A Bright New Boise (2011 Obie Award for Playwriting, 2011 Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), and his newest plays, The Few, A Great Wilderness, and Rest, all premiering in the 13/14 season.
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