'Fish' Off-Broadway review — teen buddy comedy tackles terrorism

Read our review of Fish off Broadway, written by Melis Aker and directed by Tatiana Pandiani as a co-production of WP Theater and Signature Theatre.

Summary

• Fish follows a teen girl and her best friend as they enter the dark underbelly of Twitter to find her missing brother
• The show is both a teen buddy comedy and also a nuanced portrait of a grieving family, and it skillfully balances its light and dark topics
• The show is recommended for fans of teen movies like like Booksmart, Easy A, or Lady Bird, as well as those interested by the world's political and technological shifts since 2016, when the play is set

Fish dips its toe into many taboo topics: ISIS, religious radicalization, Twitter catfishing, online exploitation of teenagers — but perhaps none of these topics will be so immediately polarizing as the period blood that’s ruining Karya’s (Yasmin Ranz-Lind) day. This is the reality — nay, the indignity — of being a teenage girl, which playwright Melis Aker illustrates so well: The world may be an awful place, and you’ll still have to put up with getting your period when you’re about to get in the pool with a cute boy. And also your mom.

Set in London in 2016, on the precipice of Brexit and the American presidential election, Karya’s world is rapidly changing. And yet, to a 17-year-old, everything seems to be changing. Her best friend Libby (Alyssa May Gold) is getting hot and heavy with a new boyfriend, she’s learning how to swim at a local club... and her Turkish mother Ceyda (Roxanna Hope Radja) has just reopened the cold case on Karya’s missing brother, whom Ceyda claims she recognized in an ISIS video online.

Needless to say, the dramatic bleeds into the comedic in Acker’s artful script as Karya and Libby navigate high school and boys as well as the dark underbelly of Twitter, where ISIS members lurk — one of whom may well be Karya’s brother. Ranz-Lind puts on a master class in facial expressions alone, capturing the body horror of being a teenager as well as the emotional horror of a complicated relationship with an overbearing mother who tends to embarrass you in public. She also captures the teenage dichotomy of extreme anxiety and unearned overconfidence so well that it’s almost visceral.

Gold is Karya’s perfect foil, full of false confidence and teen arrogance, while Sara Haider, as Karya’s brother’s estranged girlfriend Isha, exudes true cool-girl energy at all times. Despite her demeanor, Isha represents trials that Karya doesn’t have to face — anti-Muslim prejudice (which Ceyda herself exhibits), being thrown out of her home by her own parents, and even domestic violence.

Radja is relentlessly funny as Karya’s elegant mother, sliding into a well-defined and immediately lovable (if not complex) character from her first line. Her grief is just as compelling as her comedy as we see just how obsessive she has been since her son’s disappearance, scanning pixelated ISIS videos for evidence he’s still living. Rounding out the ensemble is a stoic Kario Marcel as Jon, the hapless swimming instructor who offers some sage advice when least expected and gets a lot more than he bargained for with Karya and Ceyda. Fish may be a teen buddy comedy on some levels, but it’s also a nuanced depiction of a mother-daughter relationship — broken by grief but enduring and, by the end, perhaps even healing.

Under the direction of Tatiana Pandiani, Fish is sharp, funny, and intensely vulnerable. Despite their many flaws, you can’t help but fall in love with these characters, even as they make extraordinarily questionable decisions and embroil themselves with the biggest boogeymen of the mid-2010s. In this story that is so relatable and yet such a time capsule of a moment we can’t return to, Acker’s play at once captures hearts and invites you to jump into the deep end of a scary Internet world.

Fish summary

When British teenager Karya begins to suspect her missing brother may have been radicalized by ISIS, she and her best friend Libby devise a plan: Slide into the Twitter DMs of ISIS members for information. When Karya gets the man she’s been catfishing to send her money for a fictitious journey to Serbia, the girls realize just how much power is at their fingertips. But as Karya bites off more than she can chew, the results could spell disaster.

Fish is making its world premiere as a co-production of WP Theater and Signature Theatre.

What to expect at Fish

It doesn’t feel like 2016 was really that long ago. And yet, Acker’s script captures just how much our culture has shifted since then. Fish is set before Brexit and the results of the 2016 presidential election, and we as an audience can feel the anticipation of the national and global changes these two events alone have ushered in. For characters who are ethnically Turkish in a country on the precipice of a decision motivated, in no small part, by white nationalism, we know that their future is about to get a little more dangerous, to say the least.

Fish covers a range of uncomfortable topics, and you can feel the tension in the room sharpen as Karya gets deeper into her catfishing experiment. In 2016, Twitter was just being harnessed as a necessary political tool, not just at a local level but a national one. Seeing the Twitter logo and hearing the signature tweet noise can be a little nostalgic, but the danger Karya finds there — and G Clausen’s sound design, which emphasizes the claustrophobia of the app — reminds us it has never really been a safe space, even before the era of AI deepfakes and bots.

What audiences are saying about Fish

Audience members praising Fish highlight the performances of Yasmin Ranz-Lind and Roxanna Hope Radja as daughter Karya and mother Ceyda, respectively.

• “Intriguing, dark & often daring [...] Fine ensemble esp the mother / daughter leads.” - Show-Score user Richard 129440
• “See this show if you like themes of grief and complicated family life [...] the acting was good, especially Roxanna Hope Radja, who really stood out to me.” -Show-Score user Rose 6307

Read more audience reviews of Fish on Show-Score.

Who should see Fish

• Fans of teen comedies or dramedies like Booksmart, Easy A, or Lady Bird will love the hijinks Karya and Libby get up to, especially when they clash with the dark underbelly of the internet they find themselves entangled in.
• Theatregoers who appreciate good scenic design will love Emmie Finckel’s deceptively simple set for Fish, which manages to encapsulate Karya’s home, a high school bathroom stall, Oxford Circus, the hellscape of Twitter, and most notably, a pool.
• For many, the world feels like it’s changed significantly since 2016, whether it be culturally, politically, or technologically. Audiences interested in exploring this shift will want to see playwright Melis Aker’s exploration of it in Fish.

Learn more about Fish off Broadway

Fish is both a teen comedy and a nuanced portrait of the trauma that grief inflicts on a broken family with no true closure. Both laugh-out-loud funny and clutch-your-seat tense, Fish makes it impossible not to feel for its beautifully flawed characters.

Learn more and get Fish tickets on New York Theatre Guide. Fish is at WP Theater through October 25.

Photo credit: Fish off Broadway. (Photos by Joan Marcus)