New England Premiere of 'Dying City' at Lyric Stage

Dying City
By Christopher Shinn
Directed by Daniel Gidron
Producer, Rebecca Curtiss; Scenic Design, Skip Curtiss; Costume Design, Rachel Padula Shufelt; Lighting Design, Robert Cordella; Production Stage Manager, Kayla G. Sullivan; Assistant Stage Manager, Tiffany Allen 

Featuring Jennifer Blood (Kelly) and Chris Thorn (Peter/Craig)
Performances through November 11, 2007 at The Lyric Stage Company of Boston
Box Office 617-585-5678 or www.lyricstage.com

The Lyric Stage Company of Boston boldly soldiers on with the New England premier of Christopher Shinn's Dying City. In this Off-Broadway hit, an Iraq war widow is unexpectedly visited by her late husband's twin brother, forcing her to confront her past, the loss, and try to reconstruct her life from the rubble. It is a fitting follow-up to Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire, last season's look at the impact of the war in-country. The play begins about a year after Craig's death. Kelly has remained in the Manhattan apartment they shared, but has not been available when her brother-in-law Peter tried to contact her by telephone or mail. True to his narcissistic form, he just shows up at her door one night after walking out on his performance in Long Day's Journey Into Night to escape a homophobic colleague. She is clearly taken aback by his arrival, but they engage in cheery, if awkward chitchat.  

Shinn provides an array of details in these early conversations between Peter and Kelly to flesh out their backgrounds. Whereas the twins grew up in the Midwest, sons of a Vietnam veteran with PTSD, comfortable around guns, and not financially well off, Kelly came from money and an urbane environment. She and Craig met as students at Harvard where she owed her tuition to her cold, distant father, while he owed ROTC. Peter, a gay actor, and Kelly, a therapist whose clients have often been a source of conflict with her husband, dance around a host of subjects, not alighting on any one for long. One of the key questions for the characters to explore is the circumstances of Craig's death, termed accidental by the Army. Peter is suspicious, while Kelly seems to want to leave it alone. His probing and poking leads to the conflict between them escalating. In several flashbacks to Craig's last night at home before being deployed, there is a similar dynamic as the couple argues about whether or not to have a baby and the morality of the war, among other things.  

Dying City raises more questions than it answers. Shinn's dialogue is well-written and naturally acted, but exposition is spare and it is confusing when Craig makes his first appearance in the second scene. To indicate a time change there is a dimming of the lights and Kelly dons a sweater, but I thought it meant evening was falling. Credit goes to Chris Thorn for stiffening his carriage and employing a darker look as Craig, while relaxing and lightening up as Peter. Insofar as Jennifer Blood relates differently to each of the twins, it actually feels as though there are three characters in the play. But it is never clear why these two got together in the first place, other than their college tie. Playing analyst, one could argue that they have matching baggage, that they are drawn to each other's wounds, but they don't really like each other. As a result, I found it difficult to care about any of them.  

I like a good metaphor as much as the next person, but some of Shinn's are rather heavy handed. In one particularly emotional scene, when Kelly's life changes dramatically because of Craig's disclosure, the backdrop scrim reveals a view of building ruins that loom over the set like a mushroom cloud. Other examples include the strategic placement of mirrors around the room, one of Kelly's clients representing the inner turmoil of her husband, and the O'Neill play symbolizing the twins' family.  

Which comes first, the political or the personal? Is Dying City about the devastating effects of September 11th and the Iraq war, or the damage caused by dysfunctional families and interpersonal relationships? And is the referenced city Baghdad, New York, or both? Either way, this is a difficult play to sit through, partly due to its intensity and partly due to its lack of clarity. The playwright has said that he wanted to write about truthfulness in an intimate relationship and found a parallel in the deceit practiced by the Administration to justify the invasion. While trying to focus on the former, he uses the latter to make an important, if muddied, political statement. War perpetuates pain – in the field, on the home front, and in the psyche.

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