Best Supporting Actor

there's something so alluring about characters from two starkly different backgrounds who, through each fateful encounter, learn to step in each other's shoes by degrees: whittling down the enormous chips on their shoulders, swapping out their lens of privilege, coming to recognize that their sweeping biases and assumptions were sorely misdirected.

the shifting of worldviews. the intimacy of a reluctant admission of their misjudgment.

Tag and Jay sparked that fire for me, and i knew i was a goner the first time Tag approached Jay's anxiety and past trauma with so much perceptiveness, infinite sensitivity. we all deserve to be treated in that manner.

i must confess my goldfish brain did royally fail me here: low recall of “the story thus far” (apart from my soft spot for Owen and Mason) might've contributed to the unfortunate sensation that i was slogging through the first chunk of chapters. i also thought it could've done with more on-page moments of them doing non-play-related things together, even though i'm fully aware they're two actors actively rehearsing and the play is at the center of their connection