What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends

photo: Martin R. Miller

Larry Kunofsky's snappy semi-absurd comedy seems at first to depict the paranoid fantasy of a wallflower who believes that the friends who barely tolerate her are part of a exclusionary cult. Turns out it isn't a fantasy: the friends have formed a secret and soulless society that gives them access to popularity. The play has a lot of satirical fun with this central idea - as cold and as selfish as the friend system seems, it's only an exaggeration of how most people use each other - and although the play goes slack in the second act as it transitions into a less antic tone, it's nonetheless always clever and wholly enjoyable. It's also ideally served by the five members of the ensemble (Todd D'Amour, Josh Lefkowitz, Susan Louise O'Connor, Amy Staats, and Carrie Keranen) who all seem to be on the playwright's wavelength.