"Not Afraid"

“Not Afraid” by Nora Sørena Casey is a dark comedy about Bets, a young woman who is obsessed with her death metal blog. When she gets a death threat, it catalyzes a series of disturbing encounters for both her and her housemate and best friend, Hunter, a callous law student. The two women argue about heavy metal, the U.S.S.R. and taco night—and try not to die. The play is at once funny, sad and devastating. PowerOut presents the work’s world premiere October 19 to November 4 at Under St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Place. Ben Ferber directs. Bets is 100% Communist, but not above calling on her privileged family for a little help when she gets behind on the rent. She lives in a dingy apartment in Chicago with her only friend Hunter, a law student who tends to come home with her blouse unbuttoned and her stockings not very straight. The pair are so in sync that they communicate effortlessly in a quirky personal shorthand. But acceptance and tolerance ends at their apartment door. When Bets announces her Communist politics on her blog, she is subjected to escalating death threats. Blood is smeared on her window, a squirrel is beaten to death in her living room, and it goes downhill from there. Hunter has her own drama, but it’s more that of bouncing from bed to bed while her boyfriend, Robbie, is driving from Philadelphia to divulge his love for her. Different as the two women are, they care for each other, cook for each other and protect each other from harm. But all good things must come to an end. Hunter, who’s been broke for years, has accepted a financially secure position in a small law firm in Cincinnati, but has kept it a secret from both Bets and Robbie. When Robbie arrives at the front door, it is too late to heal her relationship with him or to defuse the ticking time bomb that her departure will set off in Bets. The play is written in the hyper-colloquial speech and adorable flakiness of decidedly American inarticulateness, relying on subtext and dialect. But the two women are not no-counts—they are more like Millennial misfits caught between their realities and their dreams. The awkwardness of their conversations captures the unique impotency and irony of their generation. The ferocious music of Bets’ metalhead blog (heavy, death, sludge, doom and more) provides the aural backdrop for the play. The actors are Taylor Shurte (Bets), Anna Van Valin (Hunter) and David Register (Robbie).