'Little Bear Ridge Road' Broadway Review: Laurie Metcalf Is Our Greatest Curmudgeon Who Delights

By Robert Hofler

Samuel D. Hunter’s latest begins as a very funny two-hander comedy in which Laurie Metcalf plays another of her sharp-tongued curmudgeons and Micah Stock brings to the stage a more svelte version of Brendan Fraser’s obese recluse from “The Whale,” also by Hunter. We know Metcalf can be a hilarious bitch. What’s fun is that Stock’s tortured schlub of a nephew turns out to be just as skilled at throwing the insults back at her.

That’s the very good news about Hunter’s “Little Bear Ridge Road,” which opened Thursday at the Booth Theatre after its 2023 world premiere at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre.