CHICAGO, IL—With a title like “Swing State,” one might have reason to think this play, which opened in its world-premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, is about politics. But it’s really not.
The play takes place in the summer of 2021 in a cozy corner of rural Wisconsin, which may be why playwright Rebecca Gilman believes she has written a political work. Wisconsin, previously a Republican state (the Republican Party was founded in Ripon, Wisconsin), voted Democrat in the last election, which many have reason to believe was rigged. But that, and a comment about a local newspaper having supported the Republican nominee, is about all that could be construed as political. Everything else in “Swing State” is about the psychological issues of its characters.
Although the technical work in the production—as always at the Goodman—is excellent, the plot of the play isn’t. The slow-moving story takes a very long time to kick in, and a very long time to reach its confusing conclusion.
And when the finale arrives, it feels trite as it smothers the play’s final moment with an anti-climactic speech that drowns out whatever impact the story might have had.
Robert Falls, who recently stepped down from his tenure as Goodman’s artistic director but will continue directing plays, has already championed Gilman through five of her works at the Goodman Theatre. He now attempts to bring out the best in her new effort.
Small Town Issues
The action takes place within a house situated in a small-town landscape designed by Todd Rosenthal with a home-spun simplicity, with lighting by Eric Southern and costume design by Evelyn Danner. The play revolves around four residents of the town, where the main character, Peg (Mary Beth Fisher), is suffering from serious depression after the death of her husband.She is not only grieving over his loss, but also the destruction of bats due to a fungus, the danger of poisonous water, the failure of wildflowers, and other environmental issues. She doesn’t have any children, but has formed a motherly bond with a 20-year-old young man, Ryan (Bubba Weiler).
Ryan has lost both his parents, has a serious drinking problem, and was recently released from prison for getting involved in a fist fight in a bar. Peg has suicidal ideation and Ryan seems so fragile that any comment he dislikes sets him off into mental breakdown. What could possibly go wrong?
The problems start when Peg discovers that her husband’s rifle has been stolen from her garage. She reports the theft to the town’s sheriff, Kris (Kirsten Fitzgerald), who has lost a son to a drug overdose.
The sheriff arrives with Dani (Anne E. Thompson), her deputy who struggles with identity issues following a nasty divorce. The two strut in and out of Peg’s home with bluster and determination, as though they are investigating the crime of the century.
The minor ideological divide that one can see in the show is in differences of opinion between Peg and the sheriff. Peg believes that an empty prairie landscape is beautiful, while Sheriff Kris sees it as a wasteland in which nothing is being produced. Furthermore, Peg sees Ryan as frail and frightened, while Kris believes him to be a criminal beyond redemption.
There are a few bits of humor in the play that serve to lighten the melancholy and darkness of the heavy drama, and there are good performances from Fisher, always a terrific actress, and Weiler, who delivers the most powerful performance of the show. But even with Falls at the helm, good portrayals, and good technical work, the poor script by Gilman overwhelms everything else.
Maybe Gilman was trying to generalize the psychological focus of “Swing State” into a larger, more important theme about humanity’s search for hope in the midst of despair. But that point doesn’t come across, especially in light of the play’s ending. It destroys its climactic moment with unlikely and unwarranted optimism--or perhaps the playwright is suggesting that the hope we all long for is simply unrealistic in a world of very unhappy people.
