Palm Springs, CA
What the play is really doing
Lisa Kron’s In the Wake begins at Thanksgiving 2000, with the presidential election still unresolved and the country tense. A group of friends and family argue, bond, and collide, and what gets revealed is something harder than politics: the blind spots inside our own certainty—emotional and ideological, personal and public.
At the center is Ellen, an activist and a writer, certain she sees the world clearly. And then the play does what the best plays do. It takes that certainty and crashes it into the people closest to her, until her blind spot becomes impossible to ignore.
That’s where the play gets under your skin. It isn’t built to give you the comfort of a neat “friends-hanging-out” rhythm. It’s closer to life—messy, unscripted, and shifting. Relationships keep changing. People keep stepping on the same emotional landmines. You can’t always tell whether you’re laughing because it’s funny, or because it’s too close.
And somewhere in the story, you’re going to recognize something. You might realize: that is me – once, or I know that person, or I’ve been there before or even I’m there now
The relationships we don’t always get to choose
There’s a truth the play keeps circling: sometimes you don’t choose the people you end up tethered to.
Family is the obvious one. But it’s also the roommate, the friend from school, the partner you thought would last, the person you can’t quite cut loose because they’ve become part of your “home,” even if the home is imperfect.
Groups form. They feel like family for a while. And then—because of choices, pressures, timing, events—those groups dissolve. You move on. Or you’re forced to. Either way, life keeps pushing you into the next scene. The crisis comes when you start to realize that the idealized version of the world, and the idealized version of yourself, not just collide, but disintegrate. And you, keep telling yourself, everything is going to be ok. And the worst of that is that you are telling the people around you the same thing. That is the true disconnect.
The play understands that. It doesn’t romanticize it. It shows what it costs.
The “movie” metaphor finally makes sense
My husband has a perspective that I now understand. It’s the idea that everyone is walking around living their own movie. Sometimes we cast it. Sometimes we direct it. Sometimes we’re sure we’re the lead—until the plot proves otherwise.
And sometimes, we have no control at all. We are in situations that shape our lives. Pawns in someone else’s vision of the world. It happens from the moment we are born. Those realities are only hinted at in this play, but they’re there. There are people who are not privileged, and never know what fairness is, what compassion is—except in passing.
This play uses that exact feeling. You watch characters who care deeply and believe they’re doing the right thing. You also watch them miss themselves. You watch them hurt people—oblivious, matter-of-factly. You watch them justify things they should question.
And you start asking the question you don’t want to ask:
What part am I choosing to play, or am I a pawn in my own movie?
What it feels like in the room
The tone is a “perfect storm” of humor, tension, and blunt confrontation. I found myself laughing in moments where other people might feel appalled—because the dialogue lands like real conversation. Sometimes it’s cruel. Sometimes it’s just personality colliding with personality. Sometimes it’s what people sound like when they’re defending their identity instead of listening. Or sometimes it people behaving clueless.
If you arrive expecting a cozy “Friends” vibe, you’ll likely be disappointed. This isn’t the hangout. It’s the aftermath.
The play moves more like a series—time passing, consequences accumulating, people repeating patterns, then insisting they’ve changed. You may find yourself thinking, more than once:
“How did I get here?”
And that’s not a flaw. That’s the point.
Why this production exceeded my expectations
This play is emotionally draining—and this production excells—because of the people creating the experience.
The performances are exceptional, because these aren’t just actors playing a character. These actors are their characters. That is why it works. That level of professionalism is what makes this play compelling.
The range of emotion feels real, because it’s played as real. It doesn’t feel like “clever acting.” It feels like people. It feels like life.
And I’m sure Laura Stearns understands that very well. She has done an exceptional job choosing the right actors to play their part, and that is an accomplishment in itself.
The cast for this production is are professionals in every right. I realized that it was going to be excellent when i read the bios, before the start of the play. I wasn’t disappointed. The cast includes Kim Schroeder Long, Kudra Wagner, J. Clare Merritt, Jessica Lenz, Sharianne Greer, Allie Herb, and Ashley Robinson.
And it’s not only casting. The experience is strengthened by the full creative build: lighting, set, costumes, sound, and stage management. Those choices matter, because this play lives in tone. It lives in timing. It lives in what is said—and what hangs in the air after.
You also need to give credit to the theater’s leadership and the associates who chose, shaped, and produced this play. Steven Rosenbaum is Artistic Director of The Bent, and Terry Ray is the Managing Director. And they should be very proud of this production, because it’s well deserved.
It’s a perfect storm because of all of these things—and because of the story the playwright, at times, forces us to confront.
The question I walked out with
Coming out of the theater, the question isn’t “Did I agree?” The question is: Did I recognize myself?
Do we have control over our lives? Yes—some. But the harder question is whether we accept responsibility for our actions, and for what we leave undone. We ask forgiveness for what we did. We forget the weight of what we avoided.
That’s what this play poked in me. Not with speeches. With mirrors.
And that’s why theater matters: it lets you look through someone else’s life without having to live it, and still feel the truth of it. It’s empathy with teeth. And then the question becomes simple, and brutal: what will I do next?
A clean invitation, not a promise
This play hit me at a time when I needed to hear it. Will it do that for you? That’s for you to determine.
You may get nothing out of it. Or it may introduce characters into your own movie that you did not invite—and show you an image of yourself you did not expect.
Make that choice. Because at least for now, here in this valley, we still can.
In the Wake runs Feb 12–28, 2026, presented by The Bent at the Palm Springs Cultural Center.
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All PERFORMANCES are at the Palm Springs Cultural Center
2300 East Baristo Road, Palm Spring, California 92262