Brazen butch meets fastidious femme, and their awkward date goes hilariously horrible. That’s about all the teaser you need to know going into this seriously funny world premiere by Steve Yockey, now playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. The opening night audience was howling. The thing is, just abo ut everything that happens between these two particular women necessarily comes as such a shock and astonishment that to say much more would be like piling on spoilers. This much can be said. The two women are played by two of the most magnetic acting talents in the DMV: Kimberly Gilbert, charismatically comedic as the brazen Beth (“I have a lot of sex because I come on strong and some women like that”) and Regina Aquino, arrestingly circumspect as the fastidious Nicole (“I take safety very seriously… Someone can attack you anywhere!”)  Short-cropped redhead Beth is the assertive pursuer; long-dark-locked Nicole is the pretty prey. Kimberly Gilbert as Beth and Regina Aquino as Nicole in ‘Venus.’ Photo by Cameron Whitman. Over the course of the play, we see Gilbert range from giddy-horny to goofy-impish to laceratingly sarcastic; Aquino, from insecure and demure to transfixing and fierce. It’s absolutely awesome to watch. And Danielle Preston’s precise costume design — the most realistic and specific production element amid the show’s scenic and sonic abstraction — sets up their Odd Couple contrast nicely: thick-soled black boots and ample pants for Beth, sensible pumps and a pleated plaid skirt for Nicole. They met by happenstance, they tell us, in a book club meeting, where Nicole, a librarian, was a regular and Beth, an art-house projectionist, just dropped in. Those words “they tell us” describe the bulk of Yockey’s script. Beth and Nicole each explicate to us the audience, in detailed, virtuosic direct address, often solo, sometimes in tandem, every plot point, every escalation, and their every inner emotional response. They usually can hear what the other is saying, and they seem compelled to tell us all everything. At a couple of points, Nicole refers to us, the audience, as “them,” although, curiously, who Beth and Nicole believe us to be is never established. It’s as though they’re expecting us, anonymous strangers, to referee not only their storytelling but their entire relationship, which is a big ask, since their meetup falters and nosedives fast from maybe makeout to decidedly macabre. Yockey’s script is mined with dark comedic moments, one-liners, and truth bombs, and Gilbert and Aquino detonate each one. Their timing gets so funny at times it’s as if they’re doing tag-team stand-up. When we enter the theater, we see an unreal stage space that looks like the site of an epic: Gisela Estrada’s cryptic scenic design, the color of charcoal and coal: a huge broken sculptural ring upstage of a raised platform bracketed by shiny black rectangular blocks. The only thing familiar here is a flyspace filled with light figures — antique lamps and a celestial array of globes — which function glowingly as they lower and rise in Nic Vincent’s animate lighting design. Once the house lights go out, we hear the ominous pulse of a low bass rumble that will recur in Di Carey’s unnerving sound design. Kimberly Gilbert as Beth and Regina Aquino as Nicole in ‘Venus.’ Photo by Cameron Whitman. “Headlights” turn the raised platform into a “car” in which Beth takes Nicole on a drive to a destination that’s “in the middle of nowhere.” There, abruptly, Beth kisses Nicole, not what Nicole wanted. There’s no actual “stage kiss,” though; throughout the play, the actors never touch. Once, side by side, they delicately place their own fingers on their own lips to suggest a kiss between them. But no intimacy choreography is needed; whatever attraction the characters may feel is only ever mimed. And if anyone is curious, Beth and Nicole never mention men, which means they ace the Bechdel test. Actually, Nicole does once reference her father, in a mesmerizing monologue in which she remembers being a child and afraid of a spider. So terrified was she that her kindhearted father placed the spider in a box and helped her bury it in a hole in the ground. “Don’t be afraid, sweety,” she quotes him telling her. “This is what you do with your fears, show them you’re stronger.” Only later will we realize what horror that tale has foreshadowed. (Cue the low bass rumble again.) Separately, and unaccountably, both Beth and Nicole encounter a mysterious woman in a red raincoat — who may or may not be a red herring, I shall not say. I will disclose that she keeps saying to them, apropos of apparently nothing, “There are so many different kinds of passion” — a kind of koan that Woolly has cleverly picked up as a marketing tagline. In its own twisty way, Venus is a thesis play — a dark comedy premised on the evolutionary connection in the human species between fear and infatuation — both of which give our bodies and brains a similar rush. Love and dread, it is said, cohabit in us — and so it is that they also share the stage in Venus in ways both jolting and side-splitting. Reggie D. White directs with uncanny attunement to the richly complex emotional beats in Yockey’s script and in Gilbert and Aquino’s not-to-be-missed performances. Also, the fact that White programmed this world premiere to kick off his first season as Woolly’s new Artistic Director — with four more world premieres to come — is beyond nervy; it is inspired artistic disruption. I mean, think about it: A play by a man and directed by a man about two women who, in their affectional lives, have nothing to do with men. That could have gone so south. Instead, this production of Venus is a triumph of human truth well told. Running Time: 90 minutes, with no intermission. Venus plays through October 4, 2026, at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 641 D St NW, Washington, DC. Tickets (starting at $30) are available online, by phone at (202) 393-3939, via email at [email protected], or at TodayTix. Woolly Mammoth also offers Pick Your Price tickets, where patrons pick the price they want to pay, starting at $20. Twenty (20) Pay-What-You-Will tickets are also available for every performance online or in person — ten (10) tickets are available in advance, and ten (10) tickets are available on the day of the show. Patrons who are 30 years old and younger may purchase $25 for any performance. There are also discounts available for educators and active U.S. military personnel, spouses, and veterans. More information is available at woollymammoth.net. The Venus program is online here. Buy Tickets Discount Tickets VenusWritten by Steve YockeyDirected by Reggie D. White CASTBeth: Kimberly GilbertNicole: Regina AquinoBeth/Nicole Understudy: Emma Wesslund Scenic Designer: Gisela EstradaLighting Designer: Nic VincentDramaturg: Aysha ZackriaCostume Designer: Danielle PrestonSound Designer: Di CareyStage Manager: Kate Kilbane SEE ALSO:Woolly Mammoth launches new era with ‘Venus’ (news story, August 16, 2026) ...read more read less