Carter's exchanges with Annie resound with true-life anguish, and that's half because of Rachel Jordan Brown, who plays Annie with a whininess that starts out annoying but proves a useful springboard for the explosive later development of her character.
She's also both sexy and funny, and that brings us to Nathaniel. Tom Baran plays the roommate with sly humor, making the most of his character's broad physicality and relatively limited opportunity for development. Most important, he makes us laugh — a lot.
Finally, Ginny Myers Lee handles the key role of Charlie with wit and pathos, though, like Nathaniel, she's a little more caricatured than Carter and Annie - in her case, as the smart but flighty twentysomething.
One or two scenes go on a touch too long, and one or two backstory plot points are a little unclear, but overall, the intermissionless 100 minutes go by breezily. The only sour note is a little burst of overly poetic language that comes after the two big monologues in the climactic window-ledge scene. (It's a rule: any play that takes place in New York City and concerns ungrounded, single people approaching thirty has to include a window-ledge scene, otherwise it can't get a development grant.) The over-the-top verbiage sticks out like a sore big toe from a play that otherwise maintains its integrity of tone so admirably.
The Night Carter Was Bad is presented by Kids With Guns and runs through Oct. 18 at 59E59, 59 E. 59 St., NYC.
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