Berkshire on Stage

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a Pulitzer and Tony award-winning new and noteworthy powerhouse of a playwright for whom I have much admiration. His 2014 drama Appropriate and 2015 tragicomedy Gloria are both spectacular works that I have previously seen on stage, and his newest play Purpose recently won him the Pulitzer Prize. I was therefore eager to see Creative License‘s production of Jacob-Jenkins’s 2023 play, The Comeuppance, at the Cohoes Music Hall. Unfortunately I must report that the writing in The Comeuppance fails to measure up to some of Jacobs-Jenkins’s other works. But in spite of that, Creative License puts on a wonderful production with a talented cast, and their production of The Comeuppance is more than worth the time and the ticket price.

The Comeuppance concerns a group of high-school friends meeting to pre-game before their 20 year high school reunion. Universal themes are explored like aging, mortality, and moving on from one’s adolescence. But the discussion of major events that shaped America at the turn of the 21st Century–Columbine, 9/11, and the COVID-19 pandemic–set the play in a very specific time and place.

The crew of Creative License’s production understood the time and place and did what they could to bring the audience along. I suppose it is not hard to make an audience in 2025 believe it is 2023, but what impressed me was the care that went into making the show look and feel Millennial. The set, designed by Molly Waters, is decorated with quality second-hand furniture and potted plants; it reminds me of the homes of many of my own friends who are children of the nineties and early aughts. The costumes are a bit more generic, but they look convincingly like the semi-formal partywear one would expect to see a bunch of almost-forty-year-olds wear to a reunion event. And when I took my seat, the pre-show music played late nineties and early aughts pop classics that took me back to my childhood.

I myself graduated high school in 2010, which makes me just a few years younger than the characters in the play. I am very familiar with the existential dread, the fear of my own looming middle-age, and the strange combination of nostalgia and contempt for my adolescence that all seem to be Millennial epidemics. It would be an understatement to say that this play hit home for me, but that doesn’t mean I was overly sympathetic with the malcontented Millennial adults in the show. To his credit, Jacob-Jenkins writes an ensemble of irksome, flawed, and entertaining characters. So for better or for worse, I recognized all the characters in The Comeuppance from my own experiences.

One of the most flawed and entertaining characters is Caitlin, who is played by Nicole Mecca with great depth and sincerity. The script gives Mecca much to work with, but even in some of the most seemingly mundane moments, Mecca finds and portrays the many layers of her character. But the most irksome character in the show is undoubtedly Emilio, played by Michael Lake. Lake plays the insufferable Emilio in such a way that forces the audience to see his point of view, even while many viewers will pray for him to stop talking before his foot goes any deeper into his mouth. In spite of all this, Lake is able to draw some sympathy from the audience in Emilio’s more vulnerable moments. Shaya Reyes plays the alcoholic mother of five, Caitlin, and while she overplays some of her more hysterical moments, she is both very funny and very tragic as she navigates a life that did not live up to her expectations. And in a more subdued role, Dalina Quiñones plays Ursula, the friend group’s peacekeeper, with some delightful comedic timing and a ridiculously oversized joint.

As much as I enjoyed The Comeuppance at Cohoes Music Hall, I must admit that I found the ending to be lacking. For one thing, the play defies the basic theater principle of Chekhov’s Death. (This is the rule which states that if you make Death a character in your play, someone must die on-stage.) The audience is consistently reminded that death is coming for all the characters (some sooner than others) and that the characters are acutely aware of their mortality as they enter middle-age. Nonetheless, the play ends in mid-sentence, and the audience is left with the sense that life goes on, ironically with no real comeuppance for any of the characters. This isn’t an inherently bad way to end a play, but for a play called The Comeuppance it seems criminally, almost insultingly, unsatisfying.

But I still enjoyed The Comeuppance overall, and I think many other theatergoers will as well. It is a beautifully acted show by a very talented playwright and Creative License does the play right. I recommend this play especially to those in the Millennial and younger Gen-X age groups who often find themselves wondering where the time went. In fact, I recommend it to anyone who sometimes finds themselves thinking back to their high school days and wondering if they were indeed the rose-tinted, care-free years of their youth–or just a bout of immature stupidity that they were lucky to walk away from alive.

Creative License presents The Comeuppance by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by David Quiñones Jr., runs from September 5-September 14, 2025, at the Cohoes Music Hall, 58 Remsen Street in Cohoes, NY. Produced by Aaron Holbritter & Casey Polomaine. Cast: Michael Lake as Emilio, Dalina Quiñones as Ursula, Nicole Mecca as Caitlin, Shaya Reyes as Kristina, Daniel Michael Perez as Francisco/Paco, and Joe Plock as Simon. Stage Managed by Rhiannon Antico. Lighting Design by Maya Krantz. Set design by Molly Waters.

Performance dates are Friday-Sunday. Friday, and Saturday curtains are at 7:30pm and Sundays are matinees only at 2:00 pm. Tickets are $35 for adults, $30 for seniors 65 and up, and $25 for military and students. Runs approximately 2 hours with no intermission. Contains drinking and drug use, depictions and discussions of PTSD, and brief discussions of sex, violence, and abortion. Recommended for ages 14+. Tickets are available online at https://www.thecohoesmusichall.org/events/the-comeuppance-presented-by-creative-license, by phone at 518-434-0776, or at the door for any performance.