About the Show

Roundabout Underground, dedicated to producing new works by emerging playwrights, presents a drama about a traumatized US veteran home from Afghanistan who uses video game therapy to heal.

Newly discharged soldier Jess has finally returned to her Florida hometown. She brings with her not only vivid memories of her three tours in Afghanistan, but painful burns that have left her physically and emotionally scarred. Jess soon realizes that things at home have changed even more than she has. Through the use of virtual reality video game therapy, she builds a breathtaking new world where she can escape her pain. As Jess advances farther in the game, she begins to restore her relationships, her life and, slowly, herself. 'Ugly Lies the Bone' explores the idea that no matter how much life may ask us to endure, what truly matters is finding the strength to survive—and to heal.

Critic Reviews (17)

"The play confirms that Lindsey Ferrentino is a writer of dauntless conviction. This bracing drama, starring a superb Mamie Gummer, confronts an achingly topical issue with hardheaded honesty and admirable compassion...Despite the forthright depictions of Jess’s suffering and frustration, 'Ugly Lies the Bone,' directed by Patricia McGregor with careful attention to subtle changes in texture, retains a certain buoyancy."
Read more

"'Ugly Lies the Bone' is worthy but schematic...Patricia McGregor directs the strong ensemble with honesty and attention to detail...While 'Ugly Lies the Bone' addresses genuine contemporary issues, its reality is too streamlined and foursquare, too virtual."
Read more

"Everything that happens in the social scenes is banal compared to the therapy...The play drops so many levels it can hardly recover. That it keeps recovering anyway is mostly the result of the extraordinary performance of Mamie Gummer as Jess."
Read more

"'Ugly Lies The Bone' is clearly the work of a young talent with plenty ahead of her. It’s timely, compelling and as current as you could want. It’s also self-consciously bleak and overwrought. Jess’ return from the war doesn’t need the underlining it sometimes gets in Patricia McGregor’s alternately brisk and heavy-handed production."
Read more

"Ferrentino's writing is deeply felt and often touching. But the play, running a brief 75 minutes, feels underdeveloped and strangely thin...The drama also suffers from the skimpy production values of the developmental theater...But the work does have truly affecting moments."
Read more

"Playwright Lindsey Ferrentino has given us a unique heroine, a female war veteran, and a fascinating real-life-based premise. Virtual reality? Show us more! Yet just as we start to fully visualize Jess’ simulated world, Ferrentino pulls back the curtain. And that’s it. "
Read more

"Ferrentino is economical with her dialogue, packing both humor and sincere emotion — but Gummer offers an energetically charged and emotionally raw performance that brings the text to even greater heights...Ferrentino is at her best when writing through the tip of a laser: the insular world of pain, the claustrophobic routine of Middle America — this is the durable skeleton of 'Ugly Lies the Bone.'"
Read more

"If 'Ugly Lies the Bone' sounds like the most depressing drama of 2015, I hasten to add that it isn't, partly because of Gummer's almost brutally unsentimental performance and because of the glints of spiky humor buried in Lindsey Ferrentino's script...The author is much better at suggesting the agony of Jess' life than in providing any hope...In the brief running time of 'Ugly Lies the Bone,' a bright young talent becomes a major force to be reckoned with."
Read more

Trailer

Creative team