let's talk about anything else
Written by Anthony Anello
20 Thomas St., Manhattan, NYC
September 7-28, 2025
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| Posie Lewis and Dylan Lesch. Photo by Mikiodo. |
If genre media is to be believed, the only proper response to an invitation to spend some time with friends at a cabin, vacation home, or rental property in the woods would be to run the other way. The friend group in Anthony Anello's riveting
let's talk about anything else, though, are either unaware of or disregard the folk wisdom of decades of thriller and horror films and decide that their first trip together since a sudden trauma should be a week at an isolated Airbnb in the Berkshires. Amidst the simmering stew of the group's secrets, resentments, and jealousies, and with the appearance of an ambiguously intentioned local, more than the planned healing and hedonism will end up on the week's agenda. Originally developed by
Murmuration Theater Company,
let's talk about anything else has brought its atmosphere-soaked Berkshires getaway to Tribeca in a phenomenal production from TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence), "
NYC’s oldest and longest-producing LGBTQ+ theater company," that trains an acute, unnerving, darkly funny eye on the dynamics of loneliness, loss, and culpability.
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| The cast of "let's talk about anything else." Photo by Mikiodo. |
The play begins with the set–prominently featuring stylized painted trees and a part-wall suggesting rustic wood paneling–empty and dimly lit while we hear an anguished 911 call in voiceover. It later becomes clear that this call concerned a young woman named Abby, who, although it takes a long time for anyone among the play's assembled friends to say it out loud, died abruptly and unexpectedly. Although Abby takes her place with topics like work and politics on the list of things which the friends agree not to talk about during the course of the week, she remains an unavoidable absent presence throughout–as one of the group, Charley (Sadithi De Zilva), remarks, even not talking about Abby feels like talking about her. In addition to Charley, the group consists of Rosalie (
Posie Lewis), or Ro, who suffers from anxiety and lately has been seeing a tall, strange man around; her workaholic boyfriend, Pine (Dylan Lesch); Beck (
Gabriella O’Fallon), whose history with Ro makes Pine's presence problematic beyond it breaking the trip's "no boys" rule; Enda (a wickedly funny Ry Albinus), who feels the most immediately alone, leading her to at one point to solicit supernatural signs from the deceased Abby; and Meg (
Caroline Portante), whose anger about a secret of Enda's turns out to be linked to a secret of her own. If there were not already enough potential here for the trip to go sideways, Charley, jogging in the woods, meets and is charmed by a local, Wes (Evan Clausen, excellent at walking the line between awkwardly nice and somehow off), who's as big on inviting confidences as he is on straight talk to the point of discomfort. Oh, and Ro has packed a gun.
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| Evan Clausen, Caroline Portante, and Sadithi DeZilva. Photo by Mikiodo. |
With these compellingly drawn and superbly acted characters,
let's talk about anything else does fantastic work in teasing out the complexity of relationships, platonic, romantic, or even somewhere between the two. The process and effects of grieving of course make up a central theme, and we see that even someone like Pine, who didn't know Abby well, can be affected by her death through its effects on others. Issues of guilt and trust are woven into this as well, including but not only in relation to past and present seductions and infidelities, and details like Ro having a bit of a heteronormative streak despite being bisexual lend fascinating depth to these characters and their knotty relationships. While some of the truths that come out over the course of the narrative's week are painful, the cruel truth-telling from one person in particular positions that character as something like a modern Fury. A different character is willing to accept pain in order not to be alone: she proposes that a bad relationship is better than none at all, while Beck at one point raises the idea that the apocalypse is actually a hopeful concept because it demarcates a clear end point to suffering.
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| Gabriella O'Fallon and Posie Lewis. Photo by Mikiodo. |
The production includes some effectively creepy images and a few well staged jump scares, as well as some subtle nods to the horror genre such as Beck's Overlook Hotel and Pine's Haddonfield t-shirts. Terrific sound and lighting design by Morry Campbell and
Dominick Z. Riches, respectively, are integral to both this intense atmosphere and to the show's pacing, which includes, particularly in the early going, a significant number of brief scenes with quick blackout transitions. The production also makes smart and extensive use of the aisles in the theater, and, in another engaging staging choice, actors in some scenes direct their dialogue
towards the audience but
to an unseen second character, sometimes leaving spectators to figure out only in retrospect who was being addressed. Shocking revelations sit comfortably alongside emotionally authentic monologues (at which Lewis, De Zilva, and Portante each take a captivating turn) in the play while its more than two-hour runtime speeds by (one is tempted to say like a life cut short without warning). The show builds to a gripping conclusion that comes, if not exactly full circle, to a mirroring bookend while at the same time unsettling our perspective; but whatever way you look at it,
let's talk about anything else is a bright spot of theatrical darkness (and a great spooky season date night).
-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards
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