Road Kills
Written by Sophie McIntosh
64 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC
August 15-September 6, 2025
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| Mia Sinclair Jenness and D.B. Milliken. Photo by Nina Goodheart |
Last summer's production of
cunnicularii, from playwright Sophie McIntosh and director Nina Goodheart, used a rabbit to explore birth and parenthood; in this summer's production of new work
Road Kills, the creative pair of McIntosh and Goodheart return with a play in which all of the non-human animals we see are dead and the parents remain offstage. Family legacies and expectations nonetheless loom large for the play's central duo, who come to know one another more and more intimately, if haltingly and sometimes unwillingly, as they clean up roadkill in rural Wisconsin, one voluntarily and the other as a condition of community service. Another in a line of memorable shows by Good Apples Collective,
Road Kills drives deep into these characters' persistent guilt and trauma, raising questions of responsibility and choice and boldly crossing some double yellow lines along the way.
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| D.B. Milliken and Mia Sinclair Jenness. Photo by Nina Goodheart |
The impressive, textured set, designed by
Junran "Charlotte" Shi, comprises a segment of roadway and shoulder with a deer crossing sign towards one end, and there is already a dead young deer on that road when the play opens. In the opening scene, Owen (
D.B. Milliken) and Jaki (Mia Sinclair Jenness) have arrived to remove the fawn, and as they work, Owen, who does this for a living, instructs Jaki, who was sentenced to a term of it after an arrest, on proper procedure, such as always having one person as a spotter so that the other doesn't end up as roadkill themself. Owen and Jaki, who had not previously met, contrast in more than just how they ended up collecting roadkill together: Owen, whose father is deceased, lives with his mother and needs the income that overseeing people like Jaki provides, while Jaki, a Stanley cup her constant companion, comes from a wealthy family with a successful livestock business where she is expected by her father to continue working permanently after she finishes her less than high-achieving time at college. Owen is unfailingly considerate and even-keeled, making sure to treat the remains that he deals with with the dignity and respect that he believes all non-human animals deserve, while Jaki is often sullen–although she reveals more of her personality as she begins to warm to Owen–and prone to occasional eruptions at others, including one unfortunate owner of a deceased pet (
Michael Lepore). Jaki, partial to parties and hook-up apps, makes Owen, who doesn't date or go out, uncomfortable with talk of women's bodies and sex. Even their lunches clash: his is packed by his mother and includes an apple; hers consists of chips, cookies, and candy. But these two people, on very different roads in most ways, do progressively find common ground as they share pieces of their pasts and debate not only what they want their futures to look like but also whether making such choices is even possible for them.
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| Michael Lepore and D.B. Milliken. Photo by Nina Goodheart |
The play's structure elegantly and effectively employs the accidents that result in the roadkill that Owen and Jaki collect as transitions between their scenes together. These transitional scenes play out in darkness, the drivers and their vehicles created via voiceover and sound design, sometimes with flashes of light like headlights or, in one case, a red glow like taillights. In addition to building anticipatory tension for what we will see each time those lights come back up, the transitions also offer little snapshots of people's lives, lives which play out in cars as much as anywhere else in a nation dominated by car culture–and the sacrifice of human and other animal life that is seen as its acceptable cost. The drivers in these transitions may be distracted for very different reasons, but the deaths that result all link to questions of blame and responsibility, in one case overtly, when a daughter questions her father's quick declaration that having just killed a buck with their car "isn't our fault." By the end of the play, what we have learned about Jaki and Owen implies the intersecting question of why comparable acts, such as violations of dignity or consent, are seen as acceptable on an industrial scale and motivated by profit but inspire revulsion on an individual scale for personal reasons, however desperate those may be.
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| Mia Sinclair Jenness and D.B. Milliken. Photo by Nina Goodheart |
Owen's moments of desperation stand out all the more against his predominant and steadfast decency in Milliken's wonderfully assured performance, and Jenness beautifully communicates the sense of Jaki's keeping strong emotions bottled up, down to how she fidgets with her fingers and the ends of her sleeves when unexpectedly confronted with a deeply disliked cousin (Michael Lepore). Her flashes of teasing humor and vulnerability help to mark the shifts in the relationship between Owen and Jaki, a dynamic in which it is impossible not to be invested as the show approaches an end that sees an ironic example of the equality between human and non-human animals that Owen professes; underlines a final time the play's concerns around forgiveness and choice and responsibility; and fearlessly leads the audience into some knotty ethical and empathetic territory.
Road Kills' final image, especially if juxtaposed with one of Jaki's earlier outbursts (and the transitional blackouts), injects ambiguity into a moment of resolution, perfectly fitting for a production equally at home being funny, poignant, or uncomfortable.
-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards
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