By Alex Biese
RED BANK – Here’s the short version: “¡VOS!” is a terrifically rewarding work of theater, a staggeringly confident and robust new play now having its world premiere at the Two River Theater in Red Bank. If you are in the market for a show that is provocative, challenging even, but ultimately satisfying in a quietly devastating sort of way, this 100-minute show with no intermission is very much worth your time.
If that much has piqued your interest, “¡VOS!” is running through April 27 at the Marion Huber Theater at the Two River Theater, and it comes highly recommended.
That said, the issue with discussing “¡VOS!” in any greater degree of depth is that one fears potentially saying too much and spoiling the pure enjoyment of watching the story unfold on stage.
Playwright Christina Pumariega and director Nicole A. Watson, utilizing a two-person cast and a single set vividly brought to life by a production team that includes scenic designer Lawrence E. Moten III, lighting designer Carolina Ortiz Herrera and sound designer Sinan Zafar, have created something remarkably impressive here. This show is the story of four women, their lives separated by decades but their stories connected by shared history. The act of waiting to see if and how the pieces all fall into place is part of what makes “¡VOS!” such a compelling experience.
Here is what can be said, in the broadest of terms: Half of the play concerns Annie (played by Pumariega), an Argentenian-born and United States-raised woman returning to her birthplace of Buenos Aires in 2015 to undergo IVF treatments under the care of Dr. Cossi (played by Alexandra Silber). The other half of the show is focused on Sofia (Pumariega) and Ana (Silber), two women in 1975 involved in the Peronist Youth protest movement during the era of Argentina’s Dirty War, caught in a tense climate of increasing governmental oppression.
“¡VOS!” reveals Pumariega, already an accomplished stage and screen actress, as a powerful voice to be reckoned with as a playwright. Her script navigates some incredibly tricky terrain in terms of narrative construction, emotion, politics and history, and throughout there is a clarity to her intention and a propulsive energy to her writing that makes what is in effect a series of conversations between two people into something incredibly compelling and at times highly suspenseful. Through a deft script and masterful execution, Pumariega gives attendees access to a whole world.
She has found an ideal scene partner in Silber, who navigates the script’s complex terrain with confidence and grace, depicting through Ana and Dr. Cossi two rich, distinct characters that are each complex in their own right.
It’s a pair of notable accomplishments in a show full of them. “¡VOS!” demands and rewards your attention, and one can’t help but wonder what Pumariega has in store next.
“¡VOS!” runs through April 27 at the Marion Huber Theater at the Two River Theater, 21 Bridge Ave., Red Bank. For tickets, $50 to $70, and more information, visit tworivertheater.org/whats-on/vos/.
The article originally appeared in the April 17 – 23, 2025 print edition of The Two River Times.
