A symbolic black void dominates the setting for a Manhattan apartment in the Second Stage Theater’s revival of Dying City. This meaningful darkness speaks to the mystery that lurks at the sorrowful heart of Christopher Shinn’s drama. Before going any further, let’s confess: I didn’t grasp what the major significance of Dying City was all about back when the play premiered in 2007, and I still don’t get the greater point of it today.
Not so much a whodunit as a whydunit, Dying City involves identical twin brothers, Peter and Craig. One night in 2005, Peter makes an unexpected visit to Kelly, Craig’s widow, a year to the week after Craig died in what was reported to be an accidental shooting while serving in Iraq. It becomes evident that Kelly, who hasn’t seen Peter since the funeral, has been eluding him and is packing up her apartment.
[Read Elysa Gardner’s ★★★ review here.]
Soon Craig appears in the story, since its timeline toggles back and forth between 2005 and a night occurring some 18 months earlier in 2004, on the eve of Craig’s departure for Iraq.
Peter, who happens to be gay, is an actor in a production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, the American classic about troubled father-sons relationships. The crux of O’Neill’s play, paired with Peter’s current meltdown over a backstage incident with the actor depicting his dad, are among Shinn’s sprinkling of clues regarding the mystery of Craig’s death. The fact that Kelly is a professional therapist and has a male client who sexually demeans women is yet another part of the puzzle.
So the play ensues for 90 minutes, as Kelly alternately deals with the edgy Craig in 2004 and the woeful Peter in 2005 as further bits of information are dropped relating to the brothers’ violent father—a toxic Vietnam veteran, now deceased—and their talk circles around dolorous issues such as abuse, infidelity, trauma, and the futility of war.
Pay close attention to the information that is hidden within the incomplete sentences of the mostly terse dialogue that Shinn crafts so naturally. Eventually certain truths will be revealed.
Possibly the play’s references to watching 9/11 unfold and the Iraq conflict devolve generated deeper reverberations a dozen years ago—it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize—but Dying City packs little punch today.
Aside from the bold visual significance of designer Dane Laffrey’s spooky setting for a sparsely furnished, dead-white apartment, which is presented within a letterbox-style proscenium frame, the production seems as muted as the play—or perhaps it’s the reverse.
The acting is capable if rather quiet. Colin Woodell’s solid performance believably differentiates between the brothers; Craig is obviously more stoic a guy than the anxious Peter. Mary Elizabeth Winstead portrays Kelly as an emotionally guarded individual whose arms are often crossed defensively across her body.
The playwright stages the revival and maybe a more experienced director would have pitched the drama and its interpreters at a higher intensity. But then, as I mentioned earlier, the play does not speak to me, so let’s not further criticize its messengers.
Dying City opened June 3, 2019, at Second Stage and runs through June 30. Tickets and information: 2st.com
