Review: SHOOTING STAR at Trinity Rep

A chance airport reunion of two former lovers, twenty-five years later, is the setting for Steven Dietz’s Shooting Star.  Fred Sullivan, Jr. directs real-life couple Kurt Rhoads and Nance Williamson as Reed and Nance, a couple who approached their nearly two-year open relationship, and all of the 1970’s, ‘without irony’.

Dietz’s premise is simple and charmingly bittersweet.  Reed McAllister (Kurt Rhoads) is a burned-out sales executive who is off to Austin, TX to “show the flag” for his company, putting in a pitch for an account that he will never get.  Elena Carson (Nance Williamson) has hung on to her Birkenstock-n-yoga lifestyle is traveling to re-establish long-severed family ties.  The couple are given 14 hours in a snow-bound, nameless, airport to reflect back on their lives apart and to explore whether or not they will take advantage of the cosmic reconnection that they have experienced.

That premise is then crammed full of 90 minutes of dramatic sub-plot, both historical and present-day. The characters are written very broadly and are given plenty of amusing one-line zingers to toss about.  Reed is a modern-day Willy Loman and Nance continually celebrates her inner Tawanda.

Patrick Lynch’s slick, yet simple, airport terminal set envelopes the performers, and audience, into Dietz’s reality. The snow falling outside the enormous airport windows, along with constant and annoying TSA security announcements are effectively used to layer the reality.

The rich, shared, history of the performers adds an intriguing dimension to the productions. Performers can act “familiarity”, but “familiarity” is folded effortlessly into this production. The performances Sullivan elicits from Rhoads and Williamson are stronger and more subtle than the material. The trio take what could be a staged version of Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne” and produce an appealing evening of theater.

Shooting Star plays at Trinity Repertory Company’s Dowling Theater through November 22, 2009.  Tickets range from $20-$65 and can be purchased at the Trinity Rep box office, 201Washington Street; by phone at (401)-351-4242; and online at www.trinityrep.com.

Photo: Kurt Rhoads as Reed McAllister and Nance Williamson as Elena Carson, courtesy of Trinity Repertory Company

Photo Credit: Mark Turek

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