Theater review

LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD

95 minutes, with no intermission. At the Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St.

Actress Laurie Metcalf and playwright Samuel D. Hunter are a match made in Middle America.

There are few writers who can sublimely craft, and without any condescension, powerful stories set in flyover country as well as Hunter, whose searing “The Whale” was made into an Oscar-winning movie starring Brendan Fraser .

And Metcalf, although a rockstar of the New York stage, still explodes with the ferocious Midwest edge she sharpened for years at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. The “Roseanne” actress is never less than nuclear.

Both artists, in the best sense, feel like out-of-towners with a lot of punchy truths to lay on the out-of-touch.

At the Booth Theatre, Hunter

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