Theatre in Review: Swing State (Audible Theater at Minetta Lane Theatre)The best thing about Swing State is that it exists at all; at a time when so many younger playwrights are consumed with personal identity issues, Rebecca Gilman takes the long view, daring to wonder if the human species has much of a future. Coming hot on the heels of a summer marked by global weather disasters, the question lingers, and praise be to her for posing it. But climate change is a devilishly difficult subject to put onstage for all sorts of reasons, a problem that Swing State hasn't begun to solve. It's a brave piece, if not an entirely successful one. Happily, Robert Falls' production rests on two uncommonly sensitive and intelligent performances. As Peg, a sixty-something widow perched on the edge of an emotional cliff, Mary Beth Fisher wraps a façade of hard Midwestern practicality around profound despair, a sense that the end is near and there's no reason to hang on to see it. Having lived on a Wisconsin prairie with her late husband, a wildlife biologist, she has witnessed creeping ecological degradation as plant life is poisoned by runoff from neighboring farms and avian/animal life gradually vanishes. Devastated by the loss of her spouse, she has begun letting go of life, arranging to divest herself of her home and preserve her small patch of prairie. Fisher has a difficult challenge, having to appear completely in control while sending signals of profound distress. (When first seen in the kitchen, making zucchini bread, she experimentally holds a knife to her arm.) Yet Peg, almost against her will, still clings to life, meticulously collecting seeds of a near-extinct plant (with the too-on-the-nose name of "Shooting Star") and reaching out to troubled souls with empathy and insight. That Fisher can convey such complexity while wielding a deadpan demeanor and flat plains accent is proof of her remarkable skill; we haven't seen this Chicago-based actress in a while and it's good to have her back. Peg's only significant relationship is with Ryan, a young neighbor and surrogate son. Ryan's history is one of nonstop hard knocks, including worthless parents (now dead), alcoholism and drug abuse, and jail time following a brutal assault. Peg and her husband more or less raised him, his mother being too drunk to try. On parole, he lives a solitary existence, holding down a lousy job driving a bread truck. As played by Bubba Weiler, a striking talent gifted with a magnetic stage presence, he is a borderline feral creature, scooping up his soup like an eight-year-old and snapping his responses with exaggerated sarcasm. But his love for Peg is palpable, and the idea of her going away is enough to send him into a spiral of panic and rage. Weiler captures all these qualities and more, lighting up incandescently while sharing with an acquaintance some of the knowledge he has picked up from the only two people who have ever shown him love. Keep your eye on Weiler; he may be having a breakthrough moment. The irony driving Swing State is that Peg and Ryan's attempts at saving each other -- she with a legacy designed to provide him with stability, he with an act intended to prevent her from self-harm -- sets off a chain of events that ends in tragedy, thanks to the interference of Sheriff Kris, the local face of law enforcement, who blames Ryan for the death of her son. In trying to address the causes of the current American malaise, the play develops an oddly bifurcated structure. If Swing State is placed against a background of looming environmental catastrophe, it unfolds on a landscape of modern American ills: bad marriages, opioid addiction, police brutality, and deaths of despair. But, however honestly written, it is plagued by two difficulties. Climate change, a creeping, amorphous, hard-to-pin-down phenomenon, is notoriously difficult to dramatize. (To my knowledge, it has been done successfully once, in 2019, with Madeleine George's Hurricane Diane.) Instead of showing it, the subject must be discussed -- in this case, endlessly, adding a note of languor that drags down the action. On the other hand, the central plot -- involving a will, a stolen gun, and a police investigation that, once begun, can't be stopped -- suffers from a certain stiffness in its joints. Too many speeches are made, too many themes are enunciated, and the gears of the plot grind too obviously. Still, at least Gilman, an often-fine writer, is wrestling in all candor with the divisions that have cleaved this country, stealing focus from the ecological catastrophe just outside our front door. (In its better moments, Swing State recalls the plays of Samuel D. Hunter, our leading diagnostician of America's spiritual depression.) And Falls' production, which comes from the Goodman Theatre, is first-class all the way. As usual, he does fine work with his actors: Kirsten Fitzgerald's nuanced approach goes a long way toward keeping Sheriff Kris from being a cardboard troublemaker, and Anne E. Thompson is solid as her deputy (and niece) who, for a minute at least, looks like she might make a connection with Ryan. The production design adds a deep sense of authenticity to the proceedings. Todd Rosenthal, a master of naturalistic scenic design, has created a cluttered, homey farmhouse kitchen that looks thoroughly comfortable and lived-in; you can tell Peg was once happy here. The designer provides plenty of room for Eric Southern's lighting, which balances warm nighttime interior looks with clarifying bursts of sunlight. Evelyn Danner's costumes are thoughtfully chosen and the original music and sound design by Richard Woodbury, including such effects as birdsong and car motors, add their own notes of realism. It's always great when a playwright wants to tackle the big issues shaping our lives and given the overall quality of the production, Swing State may be well worth seeing. But it is also a reminder that the problems affecting us are extraordinarily large and complex, posing challenges that our playwrights struggle to meet. But keep trying; our lives may depend on it. --David Barbour 
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