LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD Previews — Page 3

gibsons2 said: "It's a pretty straightforward, not very original play. The analysis of Ethan's character some people are trying to do here is a bit too much, given how many times we've seen this petulant, insufferablearchetype in all types of media. The issue is in fact with the actor's delivery, the way he speaks and moves. None of these choices are helping. In fact, Micah's entire weird performance makes the play not believable and lacking any credibility."

It seems pretty clear based on what you have already written (multiple times) that it would be a fool's errand to try to convince you otherwise. So I won't. What I do want to point out, for the benefit of anyone who might be persuaded by what you say, is that I found Stock's work on Ethan to be extremely trenchant if not necessarily someone I would want to have dinner with. His "delivery, the way he acts and moves" is, to me and the others who you inappropriately label as "a bit too much" keenly observed and insightful (aided by Hunter's writing). I think all 3 performances are Tony worthy. You obviously didn't like it, which is of course your prerogative, but a bit more open-mindedness on your part would be a lot more effective.

Saw it from the second row last night. One of the best Rush seats I've had in a long time. Have to echo a lot of folks - Stock is awful. And drags the entire thing down.

I thought Stock was marvelous. I felt he did a nuanced job playing a developmentally arrested man looking for a corrective emotional experience to heal his child wounds. He would regress into childhood with both someone who wanted to save him (James) and someone who could not (Sarah).


James probably has his own trauma from his “perfect” family as he clearly tries to fix people. He may be codependent.

HogansHero said: "Broadway61004 said: "Clearly Ethan is modeled after Hunter himself"

Is that correct? It seems pretty inconsistent with someone who was a celebrated playwright (and MacArthur grantee) during the period at which Ethan is portrayed in the play. Maybe I'm missing something?"

Obviously Hunter was a celebrated playwright by the time covid happened, so in that sense, no. But he was at one point a young man growing up in Idaho, kicked out of school and ostracized when he came out, which by his own admission sent him in a deep depression and made him question what he could become as he struggled with the beginnings of his career as a writer. So no, I don't mean to imply Ethan is a literal representation of him, but clearly he wrote a ton of his own experience into the character and it was very much inspired by what he went through as a young man.

I found Stock's performance to be the event here. Metcalf, superb, is working with a sliver of a regional demographic she's nailed in the past: she's an expert at finding the pulse of these take-no-prisoner women who've held up rural communities with their foundational values and core humanity. But going deeper, necessarily, the play's arc belongs to Stock, and the actor refuses to demand audience sympathy or love; he captures the broken, stalled adult who is at sea with complex challenges before him. I was fascinated by his freedom with his own body: his shirt open, flesh exposed, for a change to reveal a gay man without a trainer-disciplined physique who is an appealing human being for being so utterly recognizable. The play was slow to grab but crept up on me, and its final 20 minutes are remarkable.

Ugh so wish I could see this again. Glad it's finding a wider audience since Chicago.

I was at the first preview and didn't post anything then because I needed to think about my very mixed response to Micah Stock. On the one hand, it's a great performance in the sense that it's very lived-in and specific and believable, and in all of his interactions with Metcalf it worked. On the other hand, the other half of the story simply doesn't work with this performance...which makes it a bad performance? The first scene in the bar between him and his love interest was so awkward and off-putting to the degree that it never made any sense that it would continue beyond that night. If it had been a failed encounter to show how damaged he was and a means to drop the information about his aunt having cancer and we never saw the love interest again, then I would have bought it. (But of course he's needed later to spur the final confrontation between Metcalf-Stock.) But his dysfunction was so extreme and there was absolutely nothing I could hang on to why this person would want to continue seeing him. Someone above suggested the love interest is codependent, or maybe we're supposed to believe the options for gay men in this smallish town are so limited that he couldn't reject him so easily. But while we as an audience had seen enough of Ethan prior to this scene to know he wasn't a threat, watching it from the love interest's perspective (especially given how short he was and how so much taller Stock was), I was distinctly uncomfortable. If I hadn't seen the character before this, I would have thought, "You need to back away slowly. This person is going to murder you."

I'm all for body positivity and seeing a gay character who doesn't look like the norm, but he needed to be at least slightly less of a mess, or there needed to be something at all appealing about him to show why the Drea character continued seeing him. But there isn't, so while one half of the play is grounded and realistic, the other half is off in romance novel fantasyland, the kind, patient heroine sticking with the broody, damaged hero. Drea is doing great work in the kind of role that's typically underappreciated, since he has to convince there's any reason he could be drawn to this person, and comes far closer than he has any right to given what he's acting against. In the final scene between them, I know that I should consider it heartbreaking for Stock's character, but I was mostly watching Drea, and thinking, "Why are you still here? You need to leave him." And I was ultimately exasperated in how long it took to play out.

And once he was gone and we got back to the meat of the Metcalf-Stock plot the play righted itself again.

So yeah, I think half the play works and half doesn't.

Updated On: 10/30/25 at 11:13 AM

WiCkEDrOcKS said: "Well,THIS f*cking sucks.

If you have opportunity to catch this before it shutters next week (??!!), I can’t recommend it enough."

Would have love to have seen the show if there was any other producer behind it. But that's just me.

Noooo! I was really looking forward to seeing this on my trip in early Jan.

Who by the way has 27 million Instagram followers!

GottaGetAGimmick420 said: "WiCkEDrOcKS said: "Well,THIS f*cking sucks.

If you have opportunity to catch this before it shutters next week (??!!), I can’t recommend it enough."

And yet if this didn't come in John Proctor would still be running and be on their 3rd or 4th Shelby replacement by now. Thanks, Scott!"

Well it did. It closed. Get over it. This was a better show than JOHN PROCTOR could’ve ever aspired to be.

Updated On: 12/12/25 at 11:52 AM