Ironbound

If you’ve ever waited for a bus that didn’t come—through sleet, heartbreak, or bureaucratic letdowns—Ironbound will ring true. It’s not some abstract metaphor. It’s a beat-up bench in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and a woman who’s been through more than her share of no-good men, low-wage jobs, and broken promises.

That woman is Darja, played by Lisa Ramirez, and she is no-nonsense with a capital NOPE. The play’s writer, Martyna Majok, doesn’t write soft characters—she gives Darja all the hard lines, sharp angles, and glints of buried hope you can pack into 90 minutes. Ramirez doesn’t sand any of it down. She builds Darja from the inside out—tough, tired, and just barely holding the line.

Majok’s Darja is tough as steel wool—and twice as useful.

Darja’s got a story made of flashbacks and freeze-frames. We see her with three men across 20 years: Maks (played with sincerity and sweetness by Adam KuveNiemann), Tommy (a fleeting figure with just enough charm to bruise), and Vic (brought to life with quirky kindness by Kevin Rebultan). There’s heartbreak, survival, and something like love. But mostly there’s grit.

Photo Credit: Ben Krantz Studio

Director Emilie Whelan keeps it all on the rails, knowing when to pause and when to let the silence do the talking. She writes in the program that Ironbound is about those moments where we can’t choose—when we’re stuck at life’s intersection, “like a leaf on the ground in the middle of a highway, begging for a breeze.” That’s the kind of line you underline and stick on your fridge.

The design team—Sam Fehr (set), Ashley Munday (lighting), Bethany Deal (costumes), and Ray Archie (sound)—delivers just enough world to keep us anchored without ever distracting from the story. A curb. A streetlamp. A hum of the past.

You walk out of Ironbound not inspired, exactly, but steadied. You think about the people you pass every day and don’t see—people making tough calls, again and again, without fanfare or applause.

And here’s the kicker: Darja might frustrate you. She clings to the wrong men. Pushes away the right ones. She trades safety for money, money for control, and control for silence. You might even think: why does she keep doing this?

But that’s the point.

Majok doesn’t give us a saint. She gives us a woman stuck in a system that grinds people down. Darja isn’t noble—she’s real. She makes bad choices because those are the only choices on the table. The play doesn’t ask us to agree with her. It asks us to see her.

What does love look like when it costs too much? What does dignity mean when you’re broke?

That’s what Ironbound is really about: a woman at the edge of the world, still getting up every day, still showing up at the stop, still hoping the next ride takes her somewhere better.

Oakland Theater Project nails it again with this beautifully stripped-down gut-punch of a play.

Performances:
Now through May 25, 2025
Thursdays through Sundays at 7:30 pm
Run Time: 90 minutes, no intermission

Location:
Oakland Theater Project
Inside the FLAX Building
1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Oakland, CA

Tickets:
$10–$60, with pay-what-you-can available at the door (space permitting)
oaklandtheaterproject.org/ironbound
Email: tickets@oaklandtheaterproject.org