Josh Petersen

After a long, epic season of federal fraud challenges, hot mic revelations and debates over whether eating at Taco Bell makes a person “fake” (if anything, it makes a person more real!) we have finally reached the end of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Season 2. And after 21 episodes of brain-smoothing insanity, this finale is a bit like palate cleanser, which is understandable but a little underwhelming. For most of the episode, we get relatively sympathetic, relatively quiet individual moments with the women, and the season’s final, inevitable series of fights and dramatic exits feels slight compared to the fireworks of Vail and Zion. After five long months, I’m tired, Andy Cohen is definitely tired and even the cast seems tired. I say let Jennie Nguyen throw her little glass and get her screen time while she still has the chance.

Before that, though, we get a perfunctory wrapup of several dangling subplots. Jen, a woman of the people, is moving into a 4,500 square foot Park City ski mansion from her 9,000 square foot Park City ski mansion. (Working class icon!!) As Murilo, who is still hot, takes notes, two patient, sweet movers realize that transporting Jen’s closet alone could easily turn into a years-long project. I need some sort of HGTV series about these movers trying to explain to Jen that moving to a house half the size means she can only keep half of her stuff. The trials and tribulations of a $2 million retainer!

I’ve always found Heather’s “good Mormon gone bad” narrative both compelling and sympathetic, but this episode makes me hope that she has a new character arc for Season 3. After pandemic delays, Heather finally plans a memorial for her dad, who died in 2020. The gathering has some noticeable absences—her mom and several of her siblings refused to show. For Heather, this is even more confirmation that she is being rejected for leaving the Church, and the celebration of life turns into a long speech on her own faith crisis. I have no idea why Heather’s family didn’t join the memorial, but I suspect it’s just as likely that some of the family didn’t want to participate in something so personal in front of reality TV cameras which, in my mind, is completely understandable. (Heather’s mom does briefly drive by the graveside service, but her face is blurred and she doesn’t stay.) Week to week, Heather is the most purely likable member of the cast, and while her faith crisis is a uniquely Utah story that the show was wise to focus on, she definitely has more to offer. I hope she gets a narrative makeover when the series returns. 

In, somehow, the show’s first scene at the Bonneville Salt Flats, undercover camp icon Meredith Marks plans a perfectly bonkers photo shoot for her jewelry brand that I completely forgot existed. Meredith also gets another chance to give a little TED Talk about gay allysip, confirming that all of her jewelry is gender-neutral and that this photo shoot will raise money for GLAAD. (Woke queen!) To show off her jewelry, a literal bus full of models (plus Brooks and Chloe) in Euphoria makeup put on some (honestly great) pastel suits. This shoot teaches us two things about Brooks: 1. Despite long standing rumors, the closest thing we’ll see to Brooks coming out is Meredith saying that Brooks “is on his own journey,” and 2. Brooks “Don’t Say The Word Vagina In Front of Me” Marks is perfectly fine with making an incest joke during the shoot. Great! Seth, who gamely wore some bold eye shadow for the occasion, has never been more likable, and the shoot ends with everyone in matching T-shirts that read “LGBTQ Rights? I’m Engaging!” If these aren’t for sale in time for Pride, Meredith is a damn fool!

In probably the most uncomfortable scene yet on the series—which is a tough competition— Whitney decides to end her sexual rut with Justin…on camera. He comes home from a trip and is “surprised” (Oh God I hope he wasn’t actually surprised) by Whitney in a sexy red swimsuit. Here’s what I can best tell happened as I watched this scene through fingers covering my eyes: Justin drinks champagne directly from Whitney’s boobs. Justin and Whitney move to the bedroom, where he’s instructed to take off his clothes. (His chain stays ON during sex.) Whitney wears only pasties and underwerar. They do some “love art,” which involves squirting body paint on each other, making out and Justin spanking Whitney. Hard. The cameras, graciously, stop rolling before things gets too hot for Bravo. Justin and Whitney have proved themselves to be the series’ best couple in Season 2, but, um, I didn’t need to see all of this! Y’all have fun though! 

During a moment of harmony in Zion, Lisa invited everyone to her ‘80s-inspired Vida Tequila party. Lisa, who has been accused of using guest lists to play psychological mind games, may have tried to extend an olive branch with the invite, but at this point, it’s too little too late. Every cast member has at least one other person they can’t stand being in a room with. Still, Lisa is not one to turn down a branding opportunity, so the event forges forward. I am hypnotized by Lisa’s descriptions of her event. She says the food is “inspired by mall eats on a luxury scale.” (Translation: Enjoy these overpriced churros.) She chose the ‘80s and ‘90s inspiration because that era is “the height of fashion and decadence.” (Why not.) Though the party had a clear theme, Lisa insists that she doesn’t want anyone to show up in costumes—if this is a way to subtly embarrass the other Housewives who do take the dress code seriously, Lisa is much more shrewd than Mary telling Whitney to show up to a pasta-making class dressed like Luigi or whatever the fuck.

When Meredith arrives, the rest of the women wonder what will happen after her and Lisa’s feud in Zion. (And nobody even knows yet about Lisa’s already-infamous “she’s fucked half of New York” rant!) In a development that should surprise no one, Lisa and Meredith seem…perfectly fine. Perhaps more than anyone in the cast, these two are able to grin and bear it in the middle of a social event, so we’ll have to look elsewhere for catfights. Mary, who, as usual, spends the party muttering hexes and making the most awkward small talk imaginable, gets dragged into conflict against her will. First, Jennie is mad that Mary is ignoring her, which seems like a lucky break to me, but whatever. Then, Whitney, who just chased Vida with more Vida, wants to apologize to Mary for criticizing her church. (To give Mary slight credit, I would also avoid any conversations with drunk Whitney.) Jennie, though, is desperate to grab her last morsels of screen time—she interrupts Whitney’s conversation to remind Mary that she’s rude, throws a glass when Mary tries to run away and milks the half-baked drama for all its worth.

After Mary leaves the party early, the rest of the cast gather for the final time this season to talk shit. (The husbands chat too, but their conversation is so boring I am physically unable to write about it.) Jen, for some reason, asks again why Meredith won’t be friends with her. Meredith simply loves to monologue about the pain inflicted on her “fam-uh-lee,” and I truly don’t know what Jen hopes to accomplish by once again giving her the opportunity. Somehow, they once again talk about Jen spreading rumors about Meredith’s marriage, which is, objectively, a thing that happened. Meredith gets to do another thing she loves—dramatically storm away from a party—while screaming “I’ll talk about who everybody dated that NOBODY knows about!” To this I say, don’t be shy Meredith! Jen and Lisa are left dumbfounded, and Jen tells Lisa,“You’re signing up for somebody and it’s not my fucking fault that she fucked the entire fucking Upper East Side.” And on this sour, slut-shamey note, we say goodbye to Season 2. By the end of the night, everyone seems vaguely miserable except for Whitney and Justin, who are fully making out in a corner. Have fun kids!                 

Next week, the cast meets on the set of an Off-Off-Broadway production of Frozen for a three-part reunion. Andy Cohen, doing the Lord’s work, will ask actual questions about Jen’s arrest, and I’m sure Meredith will have plenty to say about her bestie of 10 years saying every mean thing she can think of behind her back on camera. I can’t wait!

Random observations:

• While on glam squad duties, Murilo (call me) wears a #FreeJenShah shirt with the photo of Jen in her box braids! I need one of these so badly!
• Thank you to the Bravo editors for the Lisa love counter, which counted how many times Lisa said “love” in a single meeting (16). This data needed to be released to the general public.          
• I’m still disturbed that Jack told Lisa to wear “whatever covers you up more.” Ick!
• I don’t know if Jen’s Gucci outfit fit the 80s theme, but she did look good!
• Speaking of party fashion, Seth wears a Reagan/Bush ‘84 T-shirt, eliminating all good will from the GLAAD shoot. 
• Heather is definitely the person you want to hang out with at a mall-inspired Vida Tequila launch party. She has great rapport with the husbands, makes fun of Meredith for only eating a single slider and leaves the table as soon as Meredith and Jen are back on their bullshit. Great work! No notes.                      

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Catch up with all of our recaps of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

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In the past two years, Utah theater companies have made noticeable strides to include more performers and creators of color. This progress is far from complete, but it’s still heartening to see an intentional effort from producers, performers and patrons to change a community that was overwhelmingly white: onstage, behind-the-scenes and in the audience.

Even in this more inclusive environment, The Clean-Up Project, a new play at Plan-B Theatre by Carleton Bluford, stands out for its frankness. Written after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, this fiercely political work is a raw, righteously angry alternate history that draws upon both the present-day reactions to the Black Lives Matter movement and the U.S.’s legacy of racism. The question The Clean-Up Project asks is a necessary one: what if all the buzzwords of the past two years—“healing” and “reckoning” and “listening”—will never be enough? 

In a near-future America roiled by race riots, Jordan (Latoya Cameron) and Melvin (Chris Curlett), a Black couple, have essentially become hermits, unable to handle the harshness of the outside world. When two of their white friends, Ryan (Matt Sincell) and Taylor (Sarah Walker), unexpectedly show up at the house injured and terrified, Jordan and Melvin learn that the nation’s unrest has only grown more severe—not only have Black Americans taken over the country, but now all white people are vulnerable to being enslaved or killed. As Ryan and Taylor hide, Jordan and Melvin receive an unwelcome visit from two militants: one, Cameron (Calbert Beck), a longtime friend and the other, Chris (Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin), a stranger.

When Bluford started writing The Clean-Up Project in summer 2020, the idea of an all-out race war hardly felt outlandish. However, the play’s conceit—a dramatic, unequivocal reversal of the U.S.’s deep-seated racial hierarchy in a matter of months—sometimes strains credulity. (If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that anti-Blackness is an inescapable, insidious part of American life.) Though Bluford is willing to take the plot to extremes for the sake of a potent argument, the emotion of the characters remains the focus. Every time a horrifying detail of this new society emerges, audiences are reminded that practically everything that happens in the play is a historical reality for Black Americans—it’s just that now, white people are the victims. Even when The Clean-Up Project outlines the details of this strange new world, it never feels like a cold thought experiment. 

In the small Studio Theater at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, the creative design is intentionally austere—there is hardly a set to speak of, and almost all props are pantomimed. The spare staging by director Jerry Rapier keeps the focus on the performances and script. In the black box, audiences sit in a single row of chairs lining the stage, creating an atmosphere both intimate and claustrophobic. There is no escaping the play’s emotionally candid confrontations even when, especially in the fourth-wall breaking finale, you might want to.  

In one especially cathartic monologue, Jordan expresses her rage at the position of Black women in American society—a target of both racism and misogyny, she feels dismissed in ways both big and small by the people in her life and the world at large. Appropriately for a play largely about discrimination against Black women, Cameron and Darby-Duffin are the two standouts among the cast. They movingly explore their characters’ difficult, at times contradictory feelings, from deep anger to heartbreak to, in very different ways, weary optimism for a better future. The rich debates between Jordan and Chris power the play, providing the discussions of race and power with a human-scaled, emotional core. 

By the play’s jarring, meta conclusion, it’s clear that Bluford is more interested in political and social commentary than in presenting a tidy narrative. The questions he raises, though, are fascinating, and even when the characters (at times literally) preach to the audience, the ideas are thorny and provocative, resisting easy, feel-good messages of harmony and tolerance. Bluford even uses the typical makeup of (often very white) Utah audiences to his advantage. His writing has plenty to say to liberal white “allies,” raising questions about who is truly committed to progress and what that progress would actually look like. You probably won’t leave The Clean-Up Project feeling particularly hopeful about the future of race in America. But even when the play’s details feel over-the-top, the conflicts that rise to the surface are recognizably, painfully real.

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The Clean-Up Project will be at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center through Feb. 27. In-person performances are sold out, but the production will stream online from Feb. 23-27. For more information, visit Plan-B Theatre’s website. Read more about Utah theater.

“I was really, really, really angry and I didn’t know how to get that out,” says playwright Carleton Bluford. It was summer 2020, and Bluford, like many in the U.S., was saddened and enraged by the murder of George Floyd. Needing an outlet, he channeled his pent-up emotions into a journal entry. “That’s what I do. I start writing.” 

Initially, Bluford’s writing wasn’t meant to leave the pages of his journal, let alone be performed on stage. That changed, though, when Jerry Rapier, Plan-B Theatre’s artistic director and Bluford’s longtime collaborator and mentor, asked him if he had anything he was working on. After Bluford shared his writing, Rapier encouraged him to turn it into a play. Rapier is now directing his play The Clean-Up Project, which will premiere on Feb. 17 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.

Though The Clean-Up Project is deeply, even bruisingly, personal for Bluford, the premise won’t be mistaken for straightforward memoir. The play is set in a post-apocalyptic near-future America where African-Americans have militarized and taken over the country. A Black couple (Latoya Cameron and Chris Curlett), overwhelmed by reality, have retreated to their home in what Bluford calls “their own kind of quarantine.” The couple is forced to face the issues they’ve been avoiding, though, when their white friends (Matt Sincell and Sarah Walker) come to visit, sparking a raw, unfiltered conversation about race.

For Bluford, this reversal in power dynamics was intentionally chosen to inspire empathy in the audience, especially from white people. “I wanted to give the audience a sense of what African-Americans and BIPOC people feel on a daily basis,” he explains. In the nearly two years since Floyd’s death inspired global protest, Bluford has noticed a fading interest in racial justice. The Clean-Up Project’s premiere, in the middle of Black History Month, serves as a reminder of the everyday racism that millions still face daily in the U.S. “[For] a lot of us, this is our normal life,” Bluford says. “We don’t go on from that. This is what we deal with every day.”  

Transforming his private writing into the speculative fiction The Clean-Up Project eventually became, Bluford workshopped his play with other artists at Plan-B. “The play started to take shape as I took in other people’s suggestions and observations and points of view,” he says. Developing his unpolished, imperfect work with others was a new, sometimes uncomfortable experience for Bluford, but the process of writing this play caused him to let go of his preconceived notions. In 2015, his play Mama was also produced at Plan-B Theatre, which made him the first Black playwright to premiere a play in Utah. “I very much at that point was a writer very concerned with how people would perceive my work, how they perceive me, if they get it, if they like it,” he recalls. “At this point in my life and my career, I’m not so much concerned with what people think of my work.”

In the seven years since Mama, Bluford has grown more accustomed to speaking out, openly and unapologetically, about race in his life and his work. “To be completely honest, I’ve struggled with sharing how I feel all the time,” he says. “I’ve spent most of my life walking into rooms, speaking a certain way, acting a certain way so that everyone in the room felt comfortable or at ease.” He also accepted that talking about these issues in an unfiltered way would make some people uncomfortable, a process he calls “realizing what it feels like to have my own voice and my own space.” Bluford, who is also the production’s assistant director, says it’s been difficult to watch his personal feelings laid bare on stage over and over again, but he’s still looking forward to sharing his work with audiences. “I’m excited that I’ve written and now I’m now a part of a piece of theater that gets to do what I always wanted to do with the arts—hopefully change people’s hearts and minds.”

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The Clean-Up Project will be performed at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center from Feb. 17-27 and streaming online from Feb. 23-27. For tickets and more information, visit Plan-B Theatre’s website. Read more theater stories from Salt Lake.

I’ll say one thing about the cast of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City: this group has an almost impressive talent for ignoring what’s right in front of them. We’re now at the penultimate episode of this wild, glorious season, and the Housewives, through a combination of binge drinking and sheer delusion, have managed to spend all of their time on petty fights while there are about a dozen glaring (and more interesting!) issues that everyone is completely ignoring.

Really, this season should have been about two people: Mary and Jen. When one of your friends is wanted by the FBI for defrauding the elderly and another one of your friends married her step-grandpa to inherit the leadership of an alleged cult, it seems like it would be hard to focus on anything else. The other cast members, though, have mutually decided to maintain an uneasy status quo with Jen. This can be frustrating, but I understand why. Nobody has any way to definitively know what Jen did or didn’t do (though the evidence does not look good for her,) and between a desire to believe their friend is innocent and TV contracts requiring them to spend time with her, most of the women have decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile, there are moments where the group almost addresses the many, many reasons to be wary of Mary, a reverend who lacks even the most basic instincts of human kindness. But, partly because nobody can actually focus and partly because Mary will just deny everything anyway, all of this is neglected too. Instead, we get a protracted, exhausting investigation into Meredith’s dad’s memorial and a deep dive into the rapidly crumbling 10-year friendship between her and Lisa.  

I may be disappointed by all of the mess left unexplored (remember the little nugget that Meredith and Jen may have slept with the same man?!) but what we do have in this episode is so deliciously weird that I can’t complain too much. We pick up this week with Lisa’s furious hot mic rant, where she unleashed a torrent of every nasty thing she could think of about Meredith. When Heather, Whitney, Jennie and Jen go check on Lisa, she makes it clear that she feels everyone, not just Meredith, is to blame for not properly defending her. She packs a season’s worth of frustrations into one meltdown while security stands outside the door just in case. (Give everyone behind the scenes on this show a raise.) She threatens to pack up and leave in the middle of the night—as pretty much every cast member has done—and everyone besides Jen makes the mistake of following Lisa into the bathroom. She brandishes a hair dryer Brad-Pitt-in-Thelma-&-Louise style and yells, “I am fucking richer than all of you; I don’t need to fucking be here!” 1. I would like a fact check on this. 2. After this moment, Heather references this scene from Mommie Dearest in the confessional, solidifying her status as this cast’s one true gay icon. The other cast members actually do agree that Meredith hasn’t been a great friend to Lisa, who is left crying in the bathroom clutching a roll of toilet paper. 

While Lisa’s explosive tirades are accidentally funny, Meredith’s white-hot, quiet rage is genuinely scary to watch. While everyone else is dealing with Hurricane Lisa, Meredith fumes in the kitchen wearing a confusing original tracksuit while Mary mutters to herself that Heather “has the snobbishness of a true Mormon” and looks “inbred.” At this point, everyone should have gone to bed hours ago, but Whitney still tries to work things out with Meredith. She tries to explain that she didn’t mean any harm to Meredith by once again questioning the timing of her dad’s memorial, but Meredith doesn’t buy it and neither do I. Meredith brings up Whitney’s father, an addict who she hasn’t spoken to in months, and asks how she would like it if the group questioned her stories about him. Meredith is certainly hitting below the belt, though Whitney could have avoided this whole situation by believing Meredith’s first (and most plausible) story. Meredith points this out, to which Whitney responds, “Do you want me to hire a private investigator to find out?” I’m not on Whitney’s side here, but that’s a solid burn. Apparently, Mary was standing in the corner during the whole conversation, and after witnessing the confrontation, she just says “women” and shakes her head. Okay!

At this point, everyone has officially lost it. While Jen, Heather and Whitney are drunk peeing, Meredith storms in and demands to know who is speculating about her dad’s death. Whitney says “everyone,” and Lisa comes in swinging to deny this. I suppose we could quibble about the definition of “speculating,” but so far pretty much everybody, including Lisa, has at least entertained the possibility that Meredith is lying about the memorial. Lisa calls Meredith a “fucking liar,” and things devolve from there. Meredith is so upset and defensive that Heather feels even more suspicious, Lisa refuses to apologize and drunk Whitney yells “Meredith needs you” at Mary over and over. For once, Mary’s constant annoyance with Whitney makes complete sense, and Mary says this trip was her “last attempt” to make peace with the group. (Maybe she was never going to film the Season 2 reunion.)

After what has felt like 17 episodes of real-time documentary footage, yet another grueling girls’ trip has come to an end. Even Meredith elects to ride home on the sprinter van, and everyone must have exhausted themselves because no exciting footage is shared.

Back in SLC, Jen meets with her long-suffering lawyer Clayton. I’m always fascinated by Shah legal drama but this is pretty uneventful except for two things: Clayton says they won’t be going against Stuart unless he makes a plea deal and testifies against Jen, which has already happened and we learn that Jen herself wants to take the case to trial. 

Back at the Barlows, something truly remarkable happens: Lisa is cooking! And I mean actually cooking, not reheating Taco Bell. Inspired by the grill in Vail, she makes bacon-wrapped asparagus and immediately announces her plans to become a celebrity chef. (I am similarly ambitious when I am even slightly good at a new hobby.) She is bursting with confidence and announces that her next cooking adventure will be…learning how to make eggs. John, a supportive king, responds with a halfhearted “yeah.” With John, she debriefs after the trip and declares that she’s done getting in the middle of Jen and Meredith’s problems. She also says she will “always love” Meredith, which is an interesting stance considering her entire rant just days earlier.

For probably the last time, we get a sneak peek into Faith Temple, which is always equal parts fascinating and frightening. Apparently, Mary invited Jen personally to attend a service, which definitely feels like a trap. Jen, who relates to being accused of wrongdoing, wants to check out Mary’s church herself before making any preconceived judgments. What she finds is, as always, unique. In the church’s first in-person service since the pandemic, congregants tearfully read very passionate letters about how much they love Mary, all while someone fans her like she’s a medieval monarch. This is not the kind of footage you want when others are accusing you of running a cult where you’re worshiped as a God, but Mary has never had great judgment on what to share on a reality show with producers who are definitely not on her side. 

The episode closes with Meredith, who, along with her yassified personal trainer Jeff, is bringing out some sort of machine that looks like something between exercise equipment and futuristic torture device. I don’t know what her plan is, but she has brought out wine and a full spread of appetizers, so this workout already seems like my speed. Meredith has invited Whitney and Heather to experience…whatever this is, but Whitney is still mad at Meredith from Zion, and she plans on fact-finding, once again, about the date of her father’s memorial. At this point, I have steeled myself for another disastrous confrontation, but the vibes are much better away from the Cinco de Mayo pressure cooker. Heather and Whitney try these mysterious machines, which apparently use direct current muscle stimulation, whatever that means. (Heather knows this is probably pseudoscience but considers putting one in Beauty Lab anyway.) Meredith apologizes for her Zion outbursts and says that she believes Whitney’s intentions were good even if her delivery was questionable. She also gives a clear answer to one of Whitney’s biggest questions: the date of the memorial. This date matches Heather’s story and not Lisa’s, which I’m not sure means anything nefarious. All three, though, speculate that Lisa is up to something. Behind the scenes, Whitney and Heather were much bigger Meredith memorial truthers than Lisa, but for Meredith, who knows her friendship with Lisa is already on shaky ground, this is just one more question mark. For now, this is Meredith’s biggest ammunition, at least until the reunion, where everyone can hash out Lisa’s private comment that Meredith has “fucked half of New York.” (Woo!) Next week: the season finale!

Random observations:

• A lot of these women pronounce Zion like out-of-towners. (It’s zi-IN, not zi-ON. SMH)
• Meredith once again dispels the rumors that she traveled to Vail separately because she knew that the FBI was looking for Jen: “I’d want to be there to watch the arrest. Are you crazy? You think I would have missed it if I was the cause of it?”
• Who knows if the series will ever fully unpack all of the dirt Meredith has on Jen or all of the details people know about Faith Temple Church. So much left on the table, so little time!

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Read more of our recaps of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

Usually, if a play is at all successful, the audience won’t spend time considering the green exit signs in the corner of their peripheral vision. Sure, you might spend a half-second finding the emergency exits during the standard pre-show speech, but if you find yourself staring at escape routes instead of actors in the middle of Act II, something onstage has gone seriously wrong. 

In Egress, a new production at Salt Lake Acting Company, though, it’s perfectly fine to gawk at these oft-forgotten exit signs—in fact, they are intentionally called out during the production. The play’s protagonist (Reanne Acasio,) known only as You, is an architect who specializes in egress, also known as the means of exiting a space, which, yes, includes those ubiquitous green eyesores. After a traumatic incident, which I won’t spoil, You needs a fresh start and accepts a teaching position at a sleepy small-town college. The move, though, hardly stops her insomnia, intrusive thoughts or general sense of anxiety. As You attempts to regain her sense of security, a prosecutor (Vee Vargas, who plays multiple roles) encourages her to testify in a case about the incident that originated her trauma. 

Architectural safety and ethics may not sound like the most compelling subject matter for a drama, especially if, like me, you come in knowing next to nothing about the topic. Playwrights Melissa Crespo and Sarah Saltwick, though, use the protagonist’s career as an effective, unforced metaphor for the instability of trauma. You may be an expert on safety, but she can’t stop relitigating the time her own safety was most threatened, forcing her to reckon with the inherent insecurity of the world, especially as a woman. In one clever device, the play depicts several of You’s lectures, aided by projected images, which, besides providing interesting bits of architectural history, comment on the ways You feels trapped in her own mind.

Large sections of the play are addressed to the audience in second person, a conceit which requires Acasio to carry much of the play’s narrative and emotional arc all by herself. Acasio handles the challenge, building an authentic connection with the audience. She gives a subtle, vulnerable performance, depicting You’s fragile state-of-mind without resorting to histrionic extremes. Vargas and J.C. Ernst, playing the rest of the ensemble, are also compelling performers while providing some needed moments of levity. The lighting, designed by Jessica Greenberg, provides effective visual shorthand for moments that blur the lines between reality and You’s troubled consciousness and Dennis Hassan’s simple scenic design, mostly consisting of three walls of stacked white doors, reflects You’s anxious claustrophobia. Directed by Colette Robert, who also helmed the play’s virtual New Play Sounding Series Festival production at SLAC last year, the play slowly and surely builds tension as it reaches its climax. I wouldn’t call Egress a psychological thriller in the traditional sense, but the plot has just enough forward momentum to propel audiences through the mostly character-based drama.

Crespo and Saltwick don’t shy away from the political issues inherent to the plot. Several times during the play, You considers purchasing a gun for self-protection. (This is America after all.) As she weighs the decision, You contacts an online gun salesman with sexist assumptions about her motivations and questions whether the weapon will actually make her safer. Other characters have their own opinions on gun ownership, and their debates authentically lie beyond the expected liberal/conservative divide. At times, though, these social issues threaten to overwhelm the play’s delicate drama. 

Less explicit, and more successful, are the questions Crespo and Saltwick raise about a criminal justice system that, on a massive scale, fails to protect women. You’s interactions with an attorney are a throughline in the play, and she is reluctant to testify in a trial that she expects will only add to her trauma and sense of instability. The ending finds a delicate balance between providing a resolution and suggesting that the legal system is not the most effective avenue for providing genuine healing. In one telling moment, You asks her students to design the safest places they can imagine—many inadvertently create prisons. You’s obsession with safety may be a natural response to a frightening world, but as Egress movingly shows, self-preservation is not the same as healing.

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Egress will be performed in person through Feb. 27 and streamed online from Feb. 21-March 6. For tickets and more information, visit Salt Lake Acting Company’s website. Read more about theater in Utah.

Is anyone actually going to be on this cursed TV show by the end of Season 3? This week, after Jennie Nguyen’s racist, far-right and anti-vaccination Facebook posts received widespread backlash, Bravo announced that Jennie has been fired from The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City in the middle of Season 3 filming. This was the right call, though it certainly calls into question Bravo’s vetting process. (These were public social media posts a random person uploaded on Reddit. It didn’t exactly take the FBI, or Meredith Mark’s PI, to find them.) Mary, who has her own controversies surrounding racist comments, ditched the Season 2 reunion and almost certainly is not coming back, and Jen could very well go to jail in the middle of filming. By this point next year, every episode might be Whitney trying to remember what her skin care company is called while Lisa takes a road trip to visit every Sonic in Utah. (Honestly, I wouldn’t complain.)

Who knows what the already controversial Season 3 will look like, but as Season 2 approaches its final episodes, the cast is gifting us with some god-tier reality TV. At the beginning of the series, you could still feel that (most of) the women were testing out their relationships and getting to know each other. Now, especially after the trauma bonding in Vail, the cast has a natural intimacy that raises the emotional stakes. Last week, that meant the Housewives actually enjoyed each other’s company for the first time in recent memory. This week, it means the gloves come off in some particularly personal confrontations.

At the beginning of this episode, the good vibes are (tentatively) still intact. The Housewives are hungover after their night at the club (read: blacking out in an Airbnb basement.) Meredith thinks she was “very level-headed and tame,” so of course the editors flash back to her kissing Whitney in the hot tub. In the light of day, there might not be any more friendly kisses, but everyone’s feeling pretty good about turning this almost disastrous girls’ trip around. In an act of hubris, the women divide up into unexpected groups for the afternoon. The first half of the episode felt like a sitcom in its fifth season trying out some subplots with characters who don’t normally talk to each other. (This is a compliment, by the way.) 

Perhaps the most unlikely duo is Heather and Lisa, who go horseback riding on their “first date.” This excursion seems to be a total success. They both get to live out their horse girl fantasies— before leaving, Heather demonstrates to Whitney the difference between a gallop and canter— and over a lunch of popsicles, they both seem to recognize that their early rivalry was petty even by Housewives standards. With her new bestie, Lisa discusses the long-simmering tension with her old bestie Meredith. Heather, who earnestly relates to TikToks about being an empath, tells Lisa that she feels for her and Lisa replies, “I feel for me too.” If you can’t feel bad for yourself, how the hell are you going to feel bad for someone else? Lisa’s mistrust of Meredith goes deeper than I realized, and Heather and Lisa discuss, yet again, the timing of Meredith’s dad’s memorial. They stumble on what they believe to be bombshell news—Heather and Lisa claim Meredith told them different days for the memorial. In my eyes, there are several plausible, non-nefarious explanations for this, but Heather is convinced she’s found more evidence that Meredith isn’t telling them the whole truth. 

As Heather and Lisa gallop off into the sunset, Whitney and Jen muscle through their hangovers to drive an ATV, led by a guide who’s wearing a T-shirt that reads “let’s do something dirty.” Whitney has decided to move forward with Jen since her indictment, but she hasn’t appeared to invest in the friendship as deeply as Heather or Lisa. (I am still haunted by the fact that Lisa and Jen used to talk for three hours a day. Three! Hours!) Still, these two usually have fun together, and after their ride they also gossip about the woman on everyone’s minds. Whitney is also suspicious of Meredith’s father’s memorial (sigh,) but her theory that Meredith’s hatred of Jen goes far deeper than some out-of-pocket Tweets is much more plausible. Jen, meanwhile, feels ganged up on, because of course she does. They are also frustrated that Meredith continues to defend Mary, who is arguably the most openly rude person in the group. At this point, the circle of finger pointing is pretty tiresome, because every single cast member either has major skeletons in their closet or is defending someone with major skeletons in their closet.

Meredith, Jennie and Mary, realizing that sharing a house with Jen is more than enough adventure for one trip, head to the spa. After their massages, they share a painfully awkward snack time as Meredith confronts Jennie about spilling information to Jen about the PI she hired. On the one hand, Jennie was wrong to go behind Meredith’s back. On the other hand, Meredith should know by now that anything she tells the group will leave the room faster than Lisa Barlow could down a 32 ounce Big Gulp. (Meredith doesn’t know that Heather was even more explicit to Jen about the PI.) After Jennie apologizes, the three try to shift to small talk about their husbands. We learn that Duy won’t go to therapy, because he’s the worst. When Jennie tries to ask Mary about Robert Sr., Mary cooly rebuffs her, even though she could have very easily given a generic answer and moved on. Knowing about Jennie’s previous anti-Black comments certainly places the dynamic between her and Mary in a different light. Still, you don’t have to defend Jennie to acknowledge Mary’s own rude (and racist!) behavior. At this point, I’m relieved both of them will be off the show.

Back at the villa, Jen is hoping to rekindle the magic of Club Zion with an elaborately themed Cinco de Mayo party. (She says the theme is in honor of Mary comparing her to a “Mexican thug.” I need to lie down.) Before the festivities even begin, Meredith provides a dose of reality by asking Whitney who exactly is paying for this ill-advised fiesta. She reminds Whitney that Jen has told federal authorities that she has zero assets, and Meredith worries about the ethical and legal ramifications if Jen paid this from her own pocketbook. Whitney believes that the husbands footed the bill, which means all Meredith has to worry about is watching a bunch of white women try to pull off Frida Kahlo flower crowns. 

As dinner begins and the mariachi band starts playing, everyone is trying (a bit desperately) to keep the fun going. After a cringeworthy attempt at a conga line and some high school Spanish vocab practice, Jen gives everyone the diamond snowflake necklaces she bought with Stu Chainz (!) all the way before Vail. (Apparently, Meredith has less moral qualms about accepting diamonds than quesadillas.) The spirit of giving quickly dissipates, though, when Mary continues to be an ass to Whitney unprompted. Everyone besides Meredith is tired of having Mary around, and everyone is familiar enough with each other to know exactly what buttons to push—all it takes is one margarita and a stray passive-aggressive comment. Mary sparks it all with a dumb dig about Heather not having a husband. Heather, who’s usually hard to piss off, responds with “Fuck you, Mary Cosby. Who’s your husband? It’s your step-granddaddy.” Lisa, who is still nursing resentment against Meredith, points out to her that Mary isn’t being kind, and Jen calls Lisa out for having a double standard or something, and I’m honestly exhausted on Lisa’s behalf. Lisa, too, says that she’s at her “breaking point” with both Meredith and Jen. When Mary denies Lisa’s claim that she’s friends with everyone, Lisa goes in. This inspires a truly iconic confrontation which includes Mary criticizing Lisa’s diet (Justice for my Taco Bell queen, though remember to eat local too,) Lisa saying that everything about Mary, including her church, is fake (I mean…) and Lisa saying “Lisa Barlow is an amazing human being.” (Again, I can’t fault the self-confidence.) 

After more back-and-forth about why Mary mistreats everyone in the group even though she leads a Christian church, Whitney backs up Lisa and asks Meredith why she defends Mary. As Meredith tries (and mostly fails) to explain herself, Lisa quietly walks away. At the table, Whitney again directly asks if Meredith’s father’s memorial actually happened. I don’t know if Whitney is savvily stirring the pot for screen time or if she genuinely believes she’s Nancy Drew (probably the former,) but it’s pretty galling for her to once again confront Meredith about this when the cast has barely reckoned with the serious, credible allegations of crime and abuse against Jen and Mary. Nobody learned their lesson from yesterday, and a once again scary mad Meredith storms off with Mary.

Meanwhile, Lisa is furious that Meredith doesn’t stand up for her. Behind closed doors, we get a genuinely explosive hot mic moment. (Who knows if Lisa knew that the cameras were picking up her statements or not.) She suggests that Meredith’s family is fake, says that Seth changes jobs so much that the family doesn’t own a house and calls Meredith a whore (more specifically, a “fucking piece of shit garbage whore” who has “fucked half of New York”) multiple times. After Lisa literally throws her microphone off, the rant is over, but it’s hard to see how these one-time best friends can come back from this.

Random observations:

• Jen kicks off the Cinco de Mayo party by telling the private chef “don’t be scared.” Always a great sign for the night!
• Before the party, Mary calls Robert Sr. and asks what she should wear. He is unhelpful and pees in the middle of the phone call. Heartwarming!
• Besides her feud with Mary, most narrative threads involving Jennie have gone dormant, and it’s extra hard to care knowing that she won’t be back for next season.
• Lisa yelling “I love Taco Bell!” as Mary rambles about nutrients is Exhibit A of why this delights me.

Here’s a thought I never expected to have during an episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City: “Did I just watch an infomercial for Utah’s national parks?” In the middle of yet another disastrous girls’ trip, Zions’ red rock slot canyons have an almost mystical power to heal seemingly unhealable wounds. After a day of hiking, repelling and four-wheeling that felt suspiciously similar to a girls’ camp team building activity, the Housewives recover from one of their most bruising, personal fights ever in record time. (To be fair, a pep talk from Heather and a lot of alcohol also helped.) If I were in tourism marketing, I’d be planning the campaign now: “Zions National Park: So Spectacular You’ll Bond With a Woman Who Accused You of Staging Your Father’s Funeral.”

Before getting to these truly unexpected kumbayas, the episode continues the nasty confrontation between Meredith and Jen from last week. By this point in the night, Meredith has disengaged for the second time, but she immediately undermines her own dramatic exit by standing in the door and theatrically laughing whenever Jen speaks. She just can’t help herself, and who can blame her—Jen’s denials are pretty ridiculous! Back at the table, Meredith claims that Jen has done “a lot more” to her family than liking some mean tweets about Brooks, but she is “a kind enough soul not to bring it up.”

Whitney, bless her, is more than happy to bring it up, though! In the confessional, Whitney shares this previously unseen revelation from Vail: “Meredith thinks that Jen may have hooked up with a man that Meredith was seeing when she was separated from Seth.” 

Wait, what? Yes, apparently these mortal enemies may have slept with the same man—while Jen was very much not separated from her husband—and Meredith believes that Jen has somehow used this information against her. This potentially explosive detail, though, is brushed over quickly. Whitney doesn’t bring it up to the group, and Meredith keeps it vague, whether it’s to protect Jen or herself. Instead, the women spend a lot of time dredging up nonsensical allegations that get stupider by the minute. Whitney directly asks Meredith the question that has been circling for several episodes: Did she have anything to do with Jen’s arrest? Meredith unleashes a drunken angry laugh that is truly a sight (sound?) to behold, and once again storms inside. (For those keeping score, that is Dramatic Exit #3 for Meredith.)

FWIW, I’m completely on Meredith’s side here. The others’ most compelling evidence for this crackpot theory is that Meredith and Mary have never joined the group on the sprinter van. Um…these two actively dislike most of the group and have the budget to fly private. If I had Mary’s cult money you would never catch me on I-15 again. It’s not that deep sweetie! In the confessional, Meredith says, “I’m so flattered that these women think I’m more powerful than the FBI, but I think they could find Jennifer Shah without my help.” Period!

Heather and Whitney speculating about Meredith amongst themselves was idiotic but not terribly concerning—Heather planting the seed with Jen, though, was genuinely irresponsible, and now Jen seems convinced that Meredith led a grand conspiracy against her. Meredith spends the night fuming—besides a weird detour where she and Jen hug it out—and comes out swinging in pink pajamas the next morning before anyone’s even had the chance to eat their huevos rancheros. In an unfilmed late-night conversation, Lisa told Meredith that the others had questioned Meredith’s story that she traveled to Vail separately from the group to attend her dad’s memorial service. She rants and raves around the house while Heather, Whitney and Jen literally hide in bed (while Heather eats a box of Sugar Babies for some reason.)

The others have some plausible deniability—nobody has explicitly said “I think Meredith gave evidence to the feds and lied about her dead father’s memorial service.” But even raising pointed questions—behind Meredith’s back, with cameras filming your every move—is pretty out of pocket, especially with how scant the evidence is. Meredith threatens to leave early, and trust among the group is at an all-time low.

But then, miracle of miracles, this trip takes a complete 180. I’m still not exactly sure how this turnaround happened. Heather, after several episodes of silently absorbing the chaos, tries to rally the troops: “Your husbands sent me out here to make sure that you bitches have fun, so let’s go do this.” She is a much better group unifier than Lisa, and by the time they load the ATVs, the women are already in better spirits. For the first time this season, the group genuinely seems to be having fun—even Mary participates in the activities. By the time they return home, everyone’s high on the camaraderie, so much so that Mary gives a rare apology to Jennie, who accepts, and Lisa invites everyone (yes, everyone) to her upcoming Vida Tequila event. Our country is ready to heal!

After some wholesome national park fun, Whitney and Jen turn the basement into “Club Zion” for a night of debauchery. Jen forgets that she’s pretending to be poor and brings a (pared-down) glam squad to help her get ready—I know her lawyers are tired. Heather is just disappointed that there’s no men around. A stripper pole is involved—this is a Whitney Rose party after all—and Lisa injures herself trying to do the splits. By 3:15, the girls are still in the hot tub, Whitney has taken her top off and they’ve found enormous trifle dishes to use as wine glasses. 

In the light of morning, phones and cups are scattered by the pool, what appears to be a hair extension is inexplicably tied to the stripper pole and Meredith, Lisa, Jen and Whitney don’t remember how they ended up sharing beds. This trip is only half over (!) but after waking up with strange bedfellows, the Housewives seem ready to put their best foot forward. Something tells me (and by something I mean next week’s preview) that the good vibes won’t last long.            

Random observations:

• Bravo really needs to ban each and every cast member from social media. A Reddit user collected many of Jennie Nguyen’s former Facebook posts, which shared racist and far-right messages. Both Jennie and the other cast members responded with (pretty milquetoast) apology statements.
• More Jennie problems: She casually shares that she went to anger management after throwing something at Duy and breaking his ribs. This is straight up abusive behavior, but it’s glossed over pretty quickly in the episode.
• In the middle of Meredith’s 32nd disengagement, Whitney tries to convince Heather and Lisa that they are on the same team, saying, “We’re women; we’re mothers; we’re ambassadors of our own life.” Sure!
• This week in fashion: Heather’s sunglasses look like she’s about to watch Minions in 3D. Mary shows off her allegiances with a Brooks Marks tracksuit. Jen’s fake eyelashes are unable to withstand a long night of drinking. 
• In the morning, Lisa walks in the kitchen armed with a Smartwater, full wine glass and a large Diet Coke before grabbing a KitKat for breakfast. Simply iconic behavior. 

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During a climactic scene of The Messenger, a world premiere now at Pioneer Theatre Company, my friend leaned over to me and whispered “this is like if doomscrolling were a play.” To our internet-addled brains, by this point the play only registered as TMI—too many opinions, too many people yelling, too many serious issues to pay attention to all at once. 

To be fair, the dialogue by playwright Jeff Talbott is smarter than what you’d find on your average online echo chamber. Loosely adapting Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People for modern audiences, Talbott maintains the 19th century setting while reimagining the plot to comment on contemporary issues. The concept is promising—Ibsen’s tale of a whistleblower at odds with his community has plenty of details that feel sadly relevant to 2022. In its execution, though, The Messenger falls flat, as neither the issue-driven narrative nor the characters register.

In 1882, a small Norwegian town excitedly anticipates the opening of the nearby baths, which promise to save the town from financial ruin. As the official launch approaches, Dr. Therese Stockman (Ora Jones), who lives with her daughter Petra (Turna Mete), begins noticing a string of unexplained illnesses in town. Her preliminary research concludes that something in the baths is causing the health problems, which she fears could spread widely. She shares this information with her friend Kristine (Meredith Holzman), who wants to publish the findings in her newspaper. This news upsets Therese’s brother Peter (Mark H. Dold), the town mayor whose financial and political fortunes depend on the baths’ success. As both Therese and Peter double down on their opinions, a painful, personal ethical debate threatens both their relationship and the entire town.

In the play’s quieter scenes, the relationship between Dr. Stockman and Kristine is one of the play’s most affecting threads. The women bond over their mutual disappointment in men—relatable—and work to find their place as powerful women living in a restrictive society. Jones and Holzman have an easy chemistry on stage, and director Wes Grantom finds the most success with actors in these intimate, character-focused scenes. 

These delicate moments, though, are drowned out by the play’s wandering focus on a whole laundry list of social issues. The Messenger addresses, among other things, public health crises, media bias, political corruption, class tension, gender dynamics, generational divide, political polarization and religious hypocrisy. In just a 90 minute running time, it’s impossible for all of these disparate topics to be addressed with nuance, and too often the characters get reduced to talking heads, making arguments that directly, if clumsily, address contemporary debates. The cast was clearly talented, but they were frequently left yelling to get their point across. 

In all of these debates, Talbott refuses to take sides—in fact, one character often explicitly states that more of us need to meet in the middle and find common understanding. It’s an admirable impulse to let audiences come to their own conclusions. But in The Messenger, all of these attempts to add complexity muddles the social commentary, and audiences are left with an ever-growing pile of interesting ideas devoid of any clear point-of-view.

Though Talbott actually wrote The Messenger before the COVID-19 pandemic, the parallels between the health crisis on stage (which the characters ignore and politicize) and our world today are impossible to miss. This gives the play an added relevance, but it also, through the fault of no one in the creative team, makes it tougher to sit through. My reaction very well could be an “it’s not you, it’s me situation”—after two years of pandemic discourse and endless bad news, I admit my appetite for seeing the same thing on stage was low. In 2022, you don’t need to go to the theater for high-stakes ethical debates; you can just pick up your phone.

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The Messenger will play at Pioneer Theater Company through Jan. 29. For tickets and more information, visit their website. Read more about arts and entertainment in Utah.