“At first glance Brett Neveu’s new play looks like yet another ripped-from-the-headlines docudrama: a troubled college freshman submits a disturbingly violent first-person story to his fiction-writing class, consequently pitting an adjunct professor’s insistence on the student’s free-speech rights against the college president’s need to protect his institution’s reputation. (The story is based on a 2003 incident at San Francisco’s Academy of Art University.) But when the student turns out to be an Iraq war vet and a military criminal psychologist shows up to investigate the possibility of war crimes-among other things-HARMLESS becomes a Mametian cat-and-mouse game full of ethical ambiguities and sickening betrayals. …an engrossing and harrowing ride.” Justin Hayford, Chicago Reader “A powerful jolt to one’s head.” Chicago Tribune
