Review: CRAIGSLISTED at Nu Sass

Nu Sass, an excellent part of DC's “off Broadway” since 2009, opens its season in a new space: it's accessible! it's clean! (and its entrance is actually on 11th St., around the corner from its given address, 1100 H St. NW—super close to a Metro Center entrance). It even has a couple or 4 more seats that its previous F St. house. But with great power comes great responsibility: the black drapes, which perfectly transform a neutral office building area into a black box theatre, and the acoustic ceiling tiles—standard issue in such buildings—along with the soft bodies of an audience combine to deaden the acoustics in the otherwise very good little theatre. Craigslisted's director, Dannielle Hutchinson or Stage Manager Parris Brown surely can help the cast adjust their vocal energy so that audiences don't keep missing dialogue. Sharai Bohannon's script is well worth hearing every word.

Maggie (Jasmine Proctor), a college student struggling financially in 2014 Kansas, goes to craigslist on-line to try to dig herself out of her many debts by responding to “personal services” classified ads. Her friend Robin (Dom Ocampo) has been lending her money, and her other friend, Haley (Maggie Wardell), has been mediating the friction caused by that situation. Maggie's plan works until it doesn't; and then she has to handle her mistakes and the consequences of the false sense of security the internet used to create in those who interact with it. This feels like yesteryear to a 2025 world which faces social media and an AI galaxy far (far) too close; but the play's notions are universally sound: people evaluate other people best in person rather than by remote control.

Proctor carries the demanding role of Maggie with aplomb but not quite enough power. Maggie's struggle to become independent and self-respecting warrants an urgency that is only almost there. Ocampo and Hanlon Smith-Dorsey, who plays Maggie's client Dave, the most well-rounded character among the clients, energetically approach Robin and the strange, sweet, and sad Dave with the kind of force that Proctor ought to emulate. Jillian Blair, Joseph Wilson, and Erik Harrison effectively play several of Maggie's other clients.

Sean Preston's excellent projection design “star” as the craigslist postings which are so important to the play's story. And Julie Cray Leon's savvy costume plot for Maggie moves through the many garment changes Maggie must make to satisfy her clients' scenarios while somehow staying within the parameters of what a college woman already owns.

Craigslisted asks why contemporary society creates, demands even, an underbelly for every bright idea (think 2nd amendment v. mass shootings; polio vaccines v. vaccine denialism yielding rising epidemics). The play doesn't answer the question, but it sure is interesting and sobering during the 1¾ hours of its asking.