SMALL LIVES, BIG TRUTHS
What’s a nice girl to do? Upstairs at The Matrix, Rogue Machine Theatre is putting on another winner of a show, Nice Girl by Melissa Ross. It’s a small drama, just four actors, but a deep study of people whose lives don’t go the way they thought they would. And it’s done beautifully. It’s not earthshattering. It’s just wholeheartedly human. Ann Bronston directs this authentically realistic play with heart.
The year is 1984, 37-year-old Josephine Rosen (Anaïs Fairweather) is living with her mother in a middle-class suburb of Boston, and everyone knows that she is a “nice girl.” She’s a secretary at an accounting firm, often putting in long hours for no overtime pay just to be helpful. She doesn’t have a social life, no real friends, no relationship, except for one at the office with a co-worker named Sherry (Bailey Humiston).
Anaïs Fairweather and Bailey Humiston
Sherry is Jo’s polar opposite, a very outgoing divorced mom whose ex has custody of her kid. Where Jo dresses dowdy, Sherry’s dresses are bold, loud and patterned, hugging every curve, and she knows just how to toss her long curly blond hair in a fetching way. She’s also in her 30s, uses sassy and salty language and is currently in a relationship with a man who’s separated from his wife.
Sharing personal details and relationship doubts with the far less worldly Jo, Sherry wonders when or whether the relationship will progress to marriage. Jo is a great listener. Sherry tries to draw Jo out and persuades her to go with her to a singles club in hopes of finding someone for her: “Everybody should fall in love. It’s a lot like voting!” But with 1980s feminism in full bloom, she points out that, “We don’t haveta be just secretaries anymore and take this bullshit.”
Anaïs Fairweather and Susan Peahl
Jo cooks and cleans for her mother, and shopping for that night’s dinner she stops into a butcher shop where the most popular guy in her high school 20 years ago, Donny (Jeff Lorch), is now working behind the counter. He’s charmingly awkward, she’s accidentally very funny and they strike up a conversation that feels real and comfortable. He offers her veal chops, and she begins to cry at the idea of dead baby cows, but he offers to cook them for her some time. She takes a big step out of her comfort zone to consider the offer.
In a few days, Jo’s high school will hold its 20th senior class reunion but she’s not inclined to go, since she believes everyone else’s life is probably happier, more fulfilled and accomplished than hers. After high school, Jo had a scholarship to Radcliffe but before her freshman year ended, she had to come home to help her mother care for her dying father. She promised on his deathbed to take care of her mother, and after he died, she stayed on to do that and then never left.
Susan Peahl and Anaïs Fairweather
The banter between Jo and her mother (Susan Peahl) feels as genuine as if the words were their own. Mrs. Rosen has been a shut-in for years in robe and slippers, just watching TV. Although she won’t get dressed to go to the doctor, she thinks Jo should go to the reunion. Jo cuts her a deal: if she’s dressed when she comes home from work, Jo will go.
Without giving away what turns out to be a poignant plot, the humor—gallows?—cuts through the pathos. Each of the characters has a story to tell about where their lives unexpectedly and disappointedly have taken them. When Sherry tries to sympathize about Jo’s lost college opportunity Jo says, “It’s not so bad. It’s just what happens.”
Jeff Lorch and Anaïs Fairweather
Donny is separated and his son thinks he’s a loser, Sherry’s kid lives with the ex because he’s more dependable, and Mrs. Rosen reminisces about her “19-inch waist” and the time she auditioned and got a callback to be a Rockette, but walked away from the chance, only to marry Jo’s dad.
The actors create great sympathy for their characters. Who’s to blame, if anyone? Jo could have left but didn’t, and she still threatens to do so but keeps staying. “I’m dying a little every day,” she tells her mother. “Sometimes I pinch myself just to feel something so I know I’m not dead.”
Anaïs Fairweather and Jeff Lorch
Anaïs Fairweather’s face makes Jo’s character come alive. You could easily shed a tear with and for her. Is Donny a bad guy? Or just someone who doesn’t know how to live the single life and has made some mistakes? How about Sherry, in her endless pursuit of a permanent relationship that can bring her security. Mrs. Rosen only knows how to look back in time, while keeping up with Phil Donahue on her TV. Their lives may be downers, but the play is anything but. The dialogue is fast-paced, the situations believable and there are plenty of comic zingers.
Kudos to Casting Director Victoria Hoffman for rounding up this quartet, that meshes perfectly as an ensemble. Thanks to Dialect Coach Lauren Lovett, the actors do a bang-up job of nailing the Boston accent. The set by Scenic and Light Designer Barbara Kallir is spare but evocative of the 80s – wood-paneled walls, a rolling cart that plays butcher counter for Donny and kitchen for Jo, a cushioned arm chair for Mrs. Rosen, a small (portable) wrought iron bench to serve as porch seating.
Anaïs Fairweather, Bailey Humiston
Additional touches of era authenticity include the can of Tab soda that Jo sips from, and the Lean Cuisine frozen meals she sometimes makes for mom. Sherry gets the best wardrobe, with multiple changes into ever-curvier and brighter dresses, provided by Costume Designer Christine Cover Ferro, who also made Jo look stunning for the reunion in her perfectly fitted black dress.
Nice Girl reminds us that even the quietest lives are filled with choices, regrets, and the kind of everyday courage that’s easy to overlook but impossible to forget.
photos by Jacques Lorch
Nice Girl
A Rogue Machine Production
Matrix Theatre, upstairs on the Henry Murray Stage, 7657 Melrose Ave
80 minutes, no intermission
Fri and Mon at 8; Sat and Sun at 5 (dark June 13, 14, July 4)
ends on July 20, 2025
for tickets, call 855.585.5185 visit Rogue Machine
for more shows, visit Theatre in LA
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This is a beautifully grounded review. It is observant, unfussy, and emotionally precise. Your restraint gives the piece its power, letting the play’s quiet truths speak through your finely tuned detail and unforced empathy.