Our New Girl Theatre Review by Matthew Murray

Wondering what the most suspenseful moment is in New York theatre right now? It occurs in Our New Girl, the play by Nancy Harris that just opened at Atlantic Stage 2. Spoiler alert: It involves one character holding a chair for another. Hmm, that doesn’t sound too nail-biting in writing, does it? But trust me, as an integral element of Nancy Harris’s surprisingly absorbing play and Gaye Taylor Upchurch’s sharply honed production, the situation will leave you on the edge of your seat and perhaps even gasping or shielding your eyes. (Yes, both things happened at the performance I attended.) The accomplishment here from Harris, an Irish playwright whose work is new to New York, isn’t that she’s able to send chills up and down your spine with clockwork regularity. It’s that she’s able to do so without deploying traditional components of horror like a haunted house, unexpected loud noises, ghosts, or monsters (though, come to think of it, a tarantula is a minor supporting character), but instead by recasting everyday disturbances in uniquely unsettling ways.