These two hopeless loners are the only people in the bar in this Off Broadway revival of John Patrick Shanley’s “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,” at the Lucille Lortel Theater. Though modest in scale, the show is one of the fall’s hottest thanks to its stars, Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott. Shanley’s writing sometimes devolves into hard-boiled mannerisms, but it also has a sharp pugnaciousness. Similarly, Abbott and Plaza’s performances move beyond histrionics and gain confidence as their characters start letting themselves feel. When Danny and Roberta finally strike up a conversation, it immediately reveals their combustible approaches to life itself.

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Persons: Danny, Roberta, Oates’s slinky, You’ve, John Patrick Shanley’s “ Danny, Lucille Lortel, Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott, Plaza, Emily, Abbott, Allison Williams’s Locations: Bronx, ”, histrionics