Life has always been and will always be full of questions. Questions we ask ourselves, questions that can never be answered, questions we’re too afraid to ask. Leave If No Response, a play written by Abby Fisher presented at the Tank, looks at how and when and why we ask questions, what we do when we don’t get answers, and how we cope with the big question of what might have been.

The play follows the lives of Ariel and Mira (played by Georgia Kate Cohen and Rebecca Salzhauer), two girls raised Orthodox Jewish, from their days as middle school friends into adulthood. When Ariel confesses that she thinks she may in fact be a lesbian, things start pushing the girls apart. While not abandoning her faith, Ariel moved away from Orthodoxy. Mira dives deeper into the mitzvahs and traditions of it. Each is sure they’ll find comfort in their choices; while Ariel determines that if who she is isn’t the kind of person everyone wants to be around they can at least know what they’re in for from the moment they meet her, Mira takes solace in determining who gets access to her private life. Life takes them in widely different directions and they lose touch, but they still think about the friend who first prompted some big questions and new feelings.

Fisher’s script is funny and poignant, insightful and full of relatable awkwardness. It also walks a delicate line in its commentary on being raised in a deeply religious setting – Judaism or even more broadly religion and faith are never renounced, nor is Orthodoxy even though Ariel specifically mentions some of the negative repercussions that came from being brought up in an environment that was more stifling, and both women, maybe especially Ariel, find beauty in Jewish traditions. It simply allows questions to be asked. The production was directed by Sarah Shapiro and Isabelle Chirls. Their staging did a great job conveying character and establishing space with a minimum of set pieces. Claire Kramer did a great job with suggestive sets, Sam Harris’ lighting design was well done and a good aid in shaping the space, and Emma Lea Hasselbach’s sound design really helped bring it all into a cohesive whole with its underscoring music. Martinez-Castañeda’s costumes helped tell where these women were at each stage of their journey in a clear manner as well, from the layers and skirts seen on Orthodox women to wedding outfits to Ariel’s Doc Martens and red jacket. It managed to say a lot. All in all, the creative team, many of them young and up and coming, found great ways to make use of the tools available to them to tell their story quite capably.

The one thing that could have used clearing up is admittedly a big one. Letters are an important motif in the play. “Leave if no reply” comes from instructors to letter carries even, and audience members were invited to write letters to someone they hadn’t spoken to in a long time or even to themselves as they entered the theater, seeing Mira and Ariel writing. The back wall of the stage was hung with red string where letters were hung and attached. But it remained unclear to me how much of the monologues the two delivered about their years apart from one another was actually written down in letter form by them, to remain unsent or actually put in the mail over the years of no communication. How much of these speeches delivered to the audience were internal monologues and how much were actually put down on paper addressed to the old and absent friend.

Cohen and Salzhauer as the two leads play off each other brilliantly, capturing teenaged cringey awkwardness and adolescent friendship perfectly at the start of the play and convincingly showing these two girls growing into young women with their complex thoughts and differing reactions to their similar upbringings. Fisher gave them some beautiful monologues which they deliver captivatingly. You understand how each girl wound up making the choices she did in life, even at their most opposite. The cast was rounded out by Harris Singer as David, Mira’s eventual husband; Tess Walsh as a series of girlfriends Ariel dates throughout life; and Mae B. Tomorrow/Hannah Weisz in a number of small roles, most notably and humorously the girls’ life values teacher. While none of the supporting characters are fleshed out in the same was as the two leads, the performances are all enjoyable.

Leave If No Response is a highly enjoyable, incredibly interesting, and very promising production from a team of young and skilled creatives. It’s a story about the people and questions that shape our lives and that we carry with us for years to come. And hopefully it’s an indicator of more work to come.