I’m beginning to lose faith in the judgement of Chicago theater critics. A few months ago, the supernatural-tinged thriller Grey House premiered on Broadway, riding the waves of accolades from the Windy City. So incoherent that the producers felt the need to send local reviewers a cheat sheet explaining what they had just witnessed, the production was a fast flop despite a fine staging by Joe Mantello and a top-flight cast including Paul Sparks, Laurie Metcalfe, Tatiana Maslany, and Sophie Anne Caruso.
The newest import making me question the taste of Chicago scribes is the Goodman Theatre’s production of a new play by Rebecca Gilman that garnered superlative reviews from nearly every major outlet. Unfortunately, Swing State, receiving its New York premiere courtesy of Audible, turns out to be a merely competent naturalistic drama featuring excellent performances but feeling mundane even as the playwright throws in every topical issue she can think of.
You could play a drinking game revolving around the social issues dealt with in the play, set in rural Wisconsin. The central character is the recently widowed Peg (Mary Beth Fisher, delivering a pitch-perfect turn), first seen in her kitchen pondering various methods of killing herself with a steak knife. Suicide is merely the first hot-button topic touched upon, followed by the environmental crisis, the prison system, gun violence, mental illness, the nation’s political divide, and, of course, drug and alcohol addiction.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Not that Swing State is particularly sensational, save for its melodramatically violent conclusion (let’s just say that Chekhov’s dictum comes into effect). The less than compelling plot revolves around the theft of a vintage toolbox and shotgun from Peg’s barn, with suspicion naturally falling upon Ryan (a charismatic Bubba Weiler), a 26-year-old truck driver she’s befriended for many years after he lost both his parents and who served time in prison for a violent assault. Ryan, a recovering alcoholic, suffers from frequent anxiety attacks as a result of his experience.
Investigating the theft is Sheriff Kris (Kirsten Fitzgerald), who takes her job a little too seriously, and her newbie deputy Dani (Anne E. Thompson), who also happens to be her niece. Sheriff Kris has little use for Ryan, whom she considers an “asshole” who excuses his alcoholism by “playing the victim card,” as compared to her late son who died of an “accidental overdose” of fentanyl.
The playwright has tackled serious issues before in such acclaimed plays as Boy Gets Girl and Spinning into Butter, but those works felt far more organic than this one. Despite Fisher’s best efforts, Peg seems more a mouthpiece for speeches about the “insect apocalypse” and the disappearance of the local bat population than a living, breathing character, while the twitchy Ryan seems doomed from his first appearance. The pompous sheriff might as well be wearing a MAGA hat as she orders her niece to remove her facemask. Only the sweet Dani, beautifully played by Thompson, feels complex and real.
Veteran director Robert Falls has staged the piece with his usual impeccable professionalism, with Todd Rosenthal’s homey set design and Evelyn Danner’s on-the-nose costuming providing heartland verisimilitude. But the top-notch production is not enough to compensate for the fact that Swing State — even the title feels overly calculated — feels like a sociology paper in search of a play.
