"The fantasy of returning to the scene of one’s adolescent torment as a hot and successful adult is well-trodden, and Pipes’s use of it here is a bit too pat."
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“Most disappointingly, ‘Bite Me’ is a missed opportunity to peel back the curtain on the cruelty of a society in which the choices one makes as a hormone-addled teenager have the potential to make or break a happy adult life”
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“Martínez and her actors don't miss a detail in exploring this fraught, would-be affair, noting the tiniest shift in feeling between Melody and Nathan… the playwright carefully lays a snare that entangles her protagonists in a web of need and grievance from which there may be no escape.”
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Both Garelik and Samuel’s performances as teens are fully formed and not stereotyped; their portrayals as young adults at their ten-year high school reunion are just as authentic. Direction by Rebecca Martínez is terrific, guiding both actors organically through their curiously intimate and emotionally climactic moments, at both stages of their characters’ young lives. Pipes has written an excellent play; she draws the disparate socio-economic and racial lines between Nathan and Melody with a fine pen. The arc and landscape of their friendship and its ultimate struggle is carefully wrought and effective.
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Garelik and Samuel bring enough conviction to their complex roles to maintain our basic interest. However, for all the apparent realism of their dialogue and behavior, Melody and Nathan never rise to memorable character heights, nor do their crises prove affecting, pertinent, or convincing enough to make us care deeply about them. And since too much of the play depends on our willing suspension of disbelief, it’s hard to recommend you follow the instructions suggested by the title.
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“ ‘Bite Me’s’ story in general proceeds somewhat uneventfully, even though Nathan’s home life and self-destructive acts, as well as the racial factor, hint at a calamity that could ensue...’Bite Me’ doesn’t resort to any LaBute-ish nasty gamesmanship or revenge. It takes a more life-affirming tack, and that turns out be one of its strengths.”
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