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Review: NICE GIRL at Rogue Machine at The Matrix Theatre

must-see, slice-of-life drama through July 20th.

By: Jun. 23, 2025
Review: NICE GIRL at Rogue Machine at The Matrix Theatre  Image
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Nice Girl is the West Coast premiere of a must-see new drama at Rogue Machine on Melrose through July 20th.  This is a quietly thoughtful, intimately compelling slice-of-life four person play I found incredibly poignant and moving.

Review: NICE GIRL at Rogue Machine at The Matrix Theatre  Image
Anaïs Fairweather, Susan Peahl

The intimate upstairs Henry Murray stage at the Matrix Theatre, Rogue Machine’s home on Melrose, is a central Los Angeles portal for all kinds of unlikely magic. I’ve seen this attic space transformed, convincingly and intimately, into a rehab center, complete with hissing coffee pot, ancient sofa and stacks of well-worn inspirational paperbacks; a secret bunker for Hitler’s food tasters, with low-slung military lanterns and everything 1940s military stark; a London cafe, with chalkboards announcing the specials of the day, oxblood-red walls and the actual smell of bacon wafting through the cozy space.

I love how even the walls, around the entire space, are painted, wallpapered, or in the case of Nice Girl, slung with that oaky faux-wood paneling that was everywhere in the 1970s and lingered on through 1984, the setting of Nice Girl.  Barbara Kallir, scenic and lighting designer, brilliantly wraps you in the all the details, the piled up leaves by the front door, the old family photos, the dusty figurines and kitschy wall art, of a comfortable family home that has slightly gone to seed.

Review: NICE GIRL at Rogue Machine at The Matrix Theatre  Image
Anaïs Fairweather, Jeff Lorch

One of the things I adore about the Henry Murray stage is that it is truly immersive.  With no traditional stage and no height or divide between you and the actors, you become a part of the set and marinate in the storytelling in a way that seems to get under the skin.  I saw audience members react viscerally, body jerks, winces, shouts, unintentional exclamations and all, to the events of Nice Girl.  Even as an indie film, which Nice Girl feels like at times, I doubt that the audience could feel this connected and close to the story.  Watching Nice Girl on the Henry Murray Stage feels like living it.

Nice Girl follows Jo (an absolutely pitch perfect Anaïs Fairweather), an almost-40 woman who is still living at home with her controlling, hypochondriac Jewish mother Francine (a brilliant Susan Peahl), in a suburb of Boston.  The premise sounds tired, like the kind of story that we may have seen a million times before, but staggeringly Great Performances and subtle, insightful writing from Melissa Ross actually make it into an unforgettable, quiet treasure.

Review: NICE GIRL at Rogue Machine at The Matrix Theatre  Image
Anaïs Fairweather, Bailey Humiston

Jo works a dead-end job as secretary and is watching her entire life slip through her fingers, with the kind of horror and resignation that feels painfully relatable.  She dreads her upcoming high school reunion, a grim reminder of time passing with no milestones to show for it.  Jo has never traveled, dated, fallen in love, completed a degree, followed a dream, or truly lived a moment of her own life.  Then Jo gets some attention from local butcher Donny (the insanely talented Jeff Lorch, who was also richly wonderful in Rogue Machine’s recent historic drama Corktown).  And Jo gets to know her live-wire colleague Sherry, who promises to help Jo shake up her life a bit.  Sadly, Sherry is yet another example of the dreaded slutty Best Friend trope, which I’ve endured twice recently — but the part is played with such aplomb, incandescent fire, humor and raw heart by Bailey Humiston that I enjoyed every second.  In fact, Jo and Sherry are such a great pair, with such great affection and comedic chemistry and sparkling sense of fun between them, you want them to get an apartment in Boston together, ditch that butcher Donny, take out Francine for ice cream on weekends, and explore whatever same sex attraction they can muster.

Direction by Ann Bronston is sensitive and nuanced, and keeps the play deep in thoughtful, reflective indie film territory and away from the soapiness this material could easily sink into.

Review: NICE GIRL at Rogue Machine at The Matrix Theatre  Image
Jeff Lorch, Anaïs Fairweather

There is a wealth of quiet thoughtfulness in Nice Girl.  It explores the passive-aggressive, love-hate enmeshment between mothers and daughters.  How life can grab you by the throat, but so softly you never even feel it, and take you places you never agreed to go. How parents often cannibalize their children, like the mythical Cronos of Greek mythology, leader of the Titans, eating his own children in the fear of a prophecy that one day they would overthrow him.

Yet playwright Melissa Ross shows subtlety and insight in how Francine, a baby-talking, chain-smoking, sabotaging hypochondriac, also genuinely loves her daughter, while unwilling to let her live her own life or find any moment of pure happiness — and in how sometimes, in spite of all that, Francine is irritatingly and presciently right about details large and small, like this exchange, one of my favorite in the play:

JO: You wanna egg or a bagel.

FRANCINE: Bagel. But just a half.
JO: OK. (Jo begins to slice a bagel.)
FRANCINE: Don’t cut it like that you’ll slice your/hand up.

JO: I know howta cut a bagel! (She cuts her hand.) Damnit.

FRANCINE: I/told you.

JO: Shut it.

FRANCINE: Is it bad?

JO: No/I’m fine.

FRANCINE: Don’t get blood on my bagel.

Review: NICE GIRL at Rogue Machine at The Matrix Theatre  Image
Anaïs Fairweather

It feels like Rogue Machine is truly capable of anything, from Big, Important Plays to darkly funny, irreverent satire to small, slice-of-life dramas that reflect a certain kind of quiet, lived, overlooked truthfulness, like Nice Girl.  Every time I think I know what to expect, Rogue Machine surprises me with some bold new display of brilliance.  Nice Girl is quietly unforgettable, must-see new drama.

Nice Girls plays at Rogue Machine on Melrose through July 20th, upstairs on the Henry Murray Stage.  Rogue Machine is located at the Matrix Theatre at 7657 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles.  There is street parking. For tickets or more information call 855-585-5185 or click on the button below:



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