by Jody Tuso-Key — Managing Editor

Theatrical Outfit hit the midpoint of its 2025–2026 season this past weekend with the premiere of BLEEDING HEARTS, a new work by playwright Steve Yockey, a seasoned pro with a flair for the macabre. Yockey is also the co-executive producer of Supernatural, and after seeing the promo photos, I knew I was in for a weird ride. I just didn’t realize how weird—or how much blood would be involved. By curtain call, this had officially become the most unpredictable and bizarre show I’ve ever seen… and I mean that as a compliment. Yockey’s dark comedy gleefully rips the Band-Aid off the dysfunctional human psyche.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines dysfunction as “disruption or failure of normal social relations.” We toss that word around a lot—dysfunctional families, relationships, workplaces—but BLEEDING HEARTS asks an important follow-up question: what if you shoved that dysfunction to the edge of a cliff and gave it a firm, unapologetic push? Without giving too much away, the play centers on the spectacularly unhealthy marriage of Sloane Burke (Veronica Duerr) and Timothy Burke (Christopher Hampton). Sloane is a former weather girl turned housewife with insomnia, a sour disposition, and a reliance on off-brand Ambien. Timothy is her gentle, overworked, and aggressively accommodating husband. They squabble over the usual post-honeymoon nonsense—petty grievances, passive aggression—until Timothy brings home a homeless man he found on the street.

Meet “Old Blindy” (Tony Larkin): shirtless, blindfolded, drenched in blood, and gripping a knife like a security blanket. He takes up residence on the shoe bench, mostly sitting still, occasionally standing to emit a blood-curdling yell or pantomime a stabbing. You know. Totally normal dinner guest.

As the Burkes carry on with their evening—because apparently this is just something you deal with—we learn who they are through caustic yet laugh-out-loud banter. Enter Felicia Reed-Walker (Tess Malis Kinkaid), their neighbor across the street: wealthy, multi-divorced, wildly self-important, and a proud kleptomaniac. She drops by unannounced, talks nonstop, steals whatever she feels entitled to “borrow,” and remains entirely unfazed by the blood-soaked stranger in the room. Instead, she sets her sights on seducing Timothy, because why not add adultery to the evening’s to-do list?

Rounding out the chaos is Sloane’s brother, Josh Adams (Griff O’Brien), who appears during her off-brand-Ambien hallucinations via postcards from the boat where he’s working to escape the soul-crushing monotony of adult life. Josh functions as part Greek chorus, part life coach, and part hallucinated handyman, offering wisdom and help when things spiral—as they inevitably do.

Every member of this cast and crew commits fully to the madness. Tess Malis Kinkaid, one of my favorite Atlanta actresses, is deliciously unhinged as Felicia, the neighbor you dread and secretly adore. Veronica Duerr and Christopher Hampton share a perfectly calibrated “I love you, but I also might poison you” chemistry as Sloane and Timothy. Griff O’Brien makes a gap-life at sea look extremely appealing, and Tony Larkin’s Old Blindy becomes the play’s most unsettling—and oddly compelling—centerpiece.

Sean Daniels’s direction keeps Yockey’s razor-sharp dialogue humming inside the Burkes’ aggressively normal living room, designed by Kat Conley and dressed by properties designer Leah Thomas. Subtle details suggest an Atlanta subdivision, which somehow makes the bloodshed even funnier. Lighting and sound designers David Reingold and Dan Bauman provide perfectly timed jolts of unease, while special effects artist Sarah Beth “EssBee” Hester deserves a medal for the sheer volume of blood deployed. Seriously—how do you clean that up five nights a week?

This is dark comedy at its finest, doubling as a commentary on the slow suffocation of the middle class. Old Blindy embodies the dread of feeling stuck—of chasing happiness so hard that you bleed for it, metaphorically… and sometimes literally. I won’t spoil the ride, but I will say this show is Speakeysie-recommended. Get your tickets at https://www.theatricaloutfit.org/ ASAP and brace yourself for a night out at one of Atlanta’s best—and boldest—theaters.