I would say that about half of Unbury Your Gays by Maxine Dillon is made of a good play. The good half – the important half – is a nostalgic coming-of-age, slice-of-life story of teenage feelings, frustrations, and friendship. It explores that awful age of being so full of feelings that you could burst, and yet not being able to name half those feelings. That age where longings and desires don’t always feel like love, but like jealousy or disappointment; where even your very best friend can break your heart again and again, and how somehow, even though it doesn’t feel like it, you will pick up and grow. It’s a lovely story on its own, and the rest of the play around it (a short slice of another life, and a long epilogue) don’t seem to add to the moment, just lengthening the play to a hearty two and a half hour long saga.

Unbury Your Gays’ first act is a funny, bittersweet picture of Being A Teen: two friends spend the night together before an 8th grade dance, planning their futures, reminiscing on what til now have been the best years of their lives. Carolina (Amara “Mars” Johnson) is the shyer, more bookish one compared to Sawyer (Iliana Griffith-Suarez), who speaks with the kind of confidence one only gets from being in 8th grade and knowing everything there is to know. The object of Sawyer’s affection and attention at the dance is Jess (Delan Crawford), silly and earnest and a boy, which Carolina is definitely not. Carolina and Sawyer are both endearing and embarrassing, both perceptive beyond their years and frustrated by what they can’t know. It’s easy for them to speak frankly about their periods, their parents, and teachers they think are cute, but when it comes to feelings? Those are harder to put a name to. Director Kairos Looney has clearly given their actors the right direction and room to re-find their teen selves; it’s fun when the creative collaboration is so seamless and fitting.

The second act introduces a new time period (1815ish) and a new character, the Necromancer (also played by Johnson). Through a monologue, the Necromancer tells a story that somewhat mirrors the Sawyer/Carolina relationship. The Necromancer is a woman who once had a secret love affair with another woman; that woman is now dead, and the Necromancer may or may not have brought her back to life – or maybe her secret stays buried with her Lover. I don’t think the Necromancer storyline was either as integrated or as interesting as it could have been. It occurred to me later that the idea may be that Carolina and Sawyer are the Necromancer and her lover reincarnated, but that wasn’t clearly implied to me as I actually watched. If they aren’t reincarnations, and it’s just a parallel story from many years ago, then its inclusion was confusing. It’s not that the scene was a bad bit of writing, but I’d like to have seen the play do more exploration of the relationship between its own parts. Carolina and Sawyer mention watching a movie called the “Necromancer Witch”, but simply using the same word more than once doesn’t really mean they are corrolated. (The director’s note, which I had hoped would shed some light on the integration of the stories, is instead so dense that I had to read it multiple times in the theater and at home afterwards to start to get it.)

Once the necromancer is done talking, we go back to Sawyer and Carolina, the day-after the homecoming dance. Carolina is sad, Sawyer is mad at her, the feelings are feeling. It’s fun to see the girls’ roles flip somewhat, as Griffith-Suarez now becomes more unsure of herself and her actions while Johnson seems more determined in her own. Carolina is discovering heartbreak first-hand, and makes calculated moves; Sawyer starts to understand heartbreak via her parents’ divorce, and does some things she maybe shouldn’t have.

The end of the play is, unfortunately, another element that couldn’t justify its inclusion to me: a long epilogue narrated by Crawford, which summarizes the girls’ relationship through high school and college. It does come to a happy ending – which is better than the Necromancer’s ending. But how much does it matter? The Sawyer and Carolina we have come to know are in 8th grade, and fast-forwarding through several years of their lives just to get to a “look, they figured it all out eventually!” moment wasn’t a satisfying ending. I think that, given the playwright’s note that “growing up can be an experience of grief” – which I agree with – there could have been room for a not-so-happy ending. But I also think room could have been made in the script for a happy ending that would have felt more true to the moment we witnessed in Sawyer and Carolina’s lives. These girls are strong, and brave, and tender in 8th grade, and I wanted to see them work things out between those versions of themselves, because those versions of themselves deserved it.

Unbury Your Gays hasn’t just attracted acting talent; it’s technically sound too (except for one moment). There were great moments for scenic design (Anthony Pinder), sound design (Ethan Wade), and costuming (Katie Concannon). J Mwaki’s lighting design occasionally seemed to light more of the audience than necessary, but I think that was a result of blocking getting very close to the audience in Hyde Park Theatre’s small space. The one moment I mention is at the top of Act 2, when a fog machine sprays so much vapor so quickly it engulfs the stage and the audience, which is kind of a cool effect but, like, it’s not really that pleasant to have a surprise wall of smelly fog coming at you when you’re on the audience side of things.

Speaking of small spaces, a friendly note for some of my fellow theatre-goers: it is summer here in Austin; by 8:00 pm, you probably need to re-apply your deodorant.

Unbury Your Gays by Broad Theatre runs at the Hyde Park Theatre through June 7, 2025. For tickets and more information, visit Broad Theatre online.