Ismenia Mendes as Ana and Rohan Maletira as Jonah. Photo by Margot Schulman.
Rachel Bonds’s “Jonah,” which premiered off-Broadway in 2024 and makes its regional debut at Studio Theatre, is a masterful puzzle box of a play about trauma and the healing power of the imagination. Directed with surgical precision by Taylor Reynolds, it is a haunting, non-linear meditation on how we survive the past and whether we can ever truly narrate our own endings.
…magical…an expertly crafted new play and Reynolds and her cast, Mendes in particular, make it one that should not be missed.
Ismenia Mendes, who has appeared on such storied stages at The Public Theater and The Old Globe, delivers what may well be the single best performance I have seen in my eight years as a critic for this publication. “Jonah” is built around Mendes’s Ana, a brittle survivor who refuses to surrender into fragility. Ana is strong and bold but deeply wounded, and Mendes captures every nuance of the character.
What’s more, Mendes somehow ages on stage and not just through quick changes and new hairstyles, but through subtle shifts in how she carries her body and molds her face. The audience truly sees Mendes as both a teenager and as a woman some two decades older, with transformations rooted in a performance that seems practically magical.
Sibyl Wickersheimer’s simply evocative set design anchors the production: a single room that is childhood bedroom, private school and college dormitory, and writers’ retreat. Ana is the steady factor in this shifting space as three very different men come in and out of her chamber and her life. The use of the thrust stage at Studio’s Milton Theatre invites the audience into this space along with Bonds’s characters.
Quinn M. Johnson brings pathos to the part of Danny, whose familial relationship to Ana is at first kept uncomfortably unclear. Danny is a victim of abuse who feels deeply but who lacks the linguistic and emotional tools to express his emotions, and Johnson compellingly telegraphs this frustration and impotence.
Louis Reyes McWilliams’s Steven is a counterpoint to Danny, an awkward fellow writer who meets Ana at the writers’ colony, swooning over her novel and over her. Bonds introduces Steven as a comedic character but his lack of boundaries and inability to appreciate Ana’s emotional cues underscores the play’s themes of manipulation. McWilliams shines in a late-play scene where Steven’s own past is finally exposed, a raw moment of shared trust between him and Ana.
Then there is Jonah himself, a wide-eyed youth played with innocent brightness by Rohan Maletira. He swoops into young Ana’s life, a whirlwind of adolescent passion, only to vanish until years later, returning seemingly unchanged. Ana’s life has advanced, and she has the emotional scars to prove it. Jonah seems to exist outside of time, or perhaps even outside of reality.
“Jonah” is a heady, heavy play, but Bonds knows when to deftly break the tension with comedy. A lengthy, mostly silent scene between Ana and Steven with only a Dustbuster providing the “dialogue,” is a gem of comic timing. The adolescent bedroom pawing between Ana and Jonah offers delightfully embarrassing hilarity, a reminder of moments we’ve all had and both cherish and wish we could forget.
“Jonah” is an expertly crafted new play and Reynolds and her cast, Mendes in particular, make it one that should not be missed.
Running Time: One hour and 50 minutes with no intermission.
Advisory: Follows a character navigating the edges of her fragmented memory; a content note that contains spoilers for some of the play’s mysteries is available on the production’s website.
“Jonah” runs through April 19, 2026 at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th Street NW, Washington 20005. For more information and to purchase tickets, call the Box Office at 202.332.3300, Tuesdays-Fridays: 12-6 pm and Saturdays and Sundays (performance days): 12:00 pm – curtain, or go online.
