Everyone reacts to trauma differently in “Toxic,” now in a City Lights Theater Company world premiere. Jake (Arturo Montes) makes churlish jokes. Zoe (Nique Eagen) bristles at the implication that she’s a victim; she’s a survivor. Rachel (Sarah Dove) seeks context in history, remembering a time when political leaders could bring us back to our better selves after shocking violence.
But that was then. Today, as these survivors of a school shooting reconvene in a classroom five years after the fact, what shocks about their tragedy isn’t the violence itself but how common it is and how little leadership they’ve gotten.
Kit Wilder’s script, which is directed by Jeffrey Bracco, doesn’t seek false resolution. In bringing this group together, it frees its characters of labels and reveals them as full humans. And it gets real about whether the empathy is the answer, or whether sometimes other people are just plain wrong.