The Humans (play)

The Humans is a one-act play written by Stephen Karam. The play opened on Broadway in 2016 after an engagement Off-Broadway in 2015. The Humans was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play.

The entire play takes place during a single evening in a sparsely furnished, somewhat shabby basement duplex apartment in New York City’s Chinatown. Brigid Blake, a young aspiring composer, and her boyfriend Richard Saad, who is completing his social work degree, have just moved in together and are hosting Thanksgiving dinner for Brigid’s family.

The guests are Brigid’s working-class, Irish-American parents, Erik and Deirdre Blake, her sister Aimee, a Philadelphia lawyer suffering from ulcerative colitis and a recent breakup with her girlfriend, and Fiona “Momo” Blake, Brigid’s grandmother, who suffers from severe dementia. Momo frequently mumbles incoherently throughout the evening, requiring constant care and attention.

As the family settles in, old patterns of conversation, teasing, and tension quickly reemerge. Erik and Deirdre disapprove of Brigid living with Richard before marriage and are skeptical of her career ambitions. Deirdre, who works an unglamorous office job, also expresses resentment about how she feels mocked for her lack of sophistication. Erik, meanwhile, is distracted and uneasy the whole night, increasingly frayed and preoccupied.

Richard, whose family is wealthy, tries to make polite conversation but feels somewhat alienated from the Blakes’ dynamic. He mentions that he’s about to inherit a trust fund when he turns forty, suggesting a different kind of future stability that Brigid’s parents can’t guarantee. Brigid resents her parents for not supporting her financially after grad school. Deirdre feels increasingly marginalized and left out of her daughters’ lives.

Underlying all of this is Erik’s growing anxiety. Eventually, he reveals the real reason for his unease: he has been fired from his job as a janitor at a Catholic school after an incident that, while not fully detailed, involved inappropriate behavior — possibly being caught sleeping overnight at the school. Compounding the situation, Erik and Deirdre had invested heavily in a lake house in Scranton for retirement, but they were forced to sell it at a loss after Erik’s firing. Now they are facing serious financial insecurity.

Meanwhile, Momo has a sudden, violent outburst, needing to be restrained and comforted. The family members scramble to soothe her, exposing their vulnerabilities and their love for her despite everything.

The play also carries an almost horror-movie-like atmosphere: strange thumps are heard from the apartment above, lights flicker and buzz, mysterious stains appear on the ceiling, and the apartment feels unsettlingly dark and oppressive. These eerie details create a haunting metaphor for the emotional and existential dread the family is experiencing.