‘Jonah’ Off Broadway Review: How a Fantasy Becomes Reality if You Write About It

Rachel Bonds’ fascinating new play finds hope in an author’s imagination

Gabby Beans and Hagan Oliveras in Roundabout Theatre Company’s "Jonah"
Gabby Beans and Hagan Oliveras in Roundabout Theatre Company’s "Jonah" (Credit: Joan Marcus)

Leaving the theater where the new play “Jonah” had just performed, a couple behind me barely waited for the curtain to come down to start talking about what they’d just seen.

“So the three male characters were the woman’s fantasies,” he proclaimed with assurance.

“No!” she replied. “They were all real.”

My date for the evening and I agreed on yet a third interpretation. As we saw the play, two of the male characters are real, and one of them is a fantasy. Of course, in the theater, everybody on stage is a figment of the playwright’s imagination, and it’s telling that Rachel Bonds, the author of “Jonah,” has made her lead character, Ana (Gabby Beans), a writer who has written either a memoir or an autobiographical novel, and she is working on a sophomore effort.

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