On the Road, in Three Dimensions: Caroline

"One marker of the spurious issue play-a form the contemporary American theater features in surplus-is that it tends to be populated with puppets. Their inhabitants can, like the horror that is Tilly Norwood, look real, they can be loud or colorful or quirky, but ultimately they plug into a formula - they do what the playwright needs them to do. That's why it's refreshing to come across a play like Preston Max Allen's Caroline, the assured, affecting three-hander."

""Can you not tell them I'm trans?" Allen's title character asks her mother in the play's second scene. "Can't I just be a girl?" She is Caroline (the wonderful River Lipe-Smith). She's 9 years old and she's only just chosen her name and shared it with her mother, Maddie (Chloë Grace Moretz, doing raw, poignant work). Her question, in Lipe-Smith's inquisitive piccolo of a voice, is heartbreaking in its blend of straightforwardness and desperate desire, as is her mother's wavering response."

Caroline centers on a nine-year-old transgender girl, Caroline, and her mother Maddie as they move through transient spaces seeking stability. Caroline asks to be seen simply as a girl while Maddie hesitates, balancing protection with disclosure. The production is directed by David Cromer with a spare, thoughtful approach and a set that blends diner and motel spaces into a transient landscape. Performances by River Lipe-Smith and Chloë Grace Moretz render tender, raw exchanges about identity, trust, and parental responsibility. The play foregrounds human relationships and moral ambiguity, generating political resonance through nuanced, empathetic characterization rather than polemic.

Read at Vulture