The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Audible’s Swing State

By Ross

Standing in the late night light of a fridge held open, a woman contemplates more than just a midnight nibble. Morbid in her thoughts and questions, she can’t quite see a downside, as she looks at the knife and her bare wrists. She ponders existence and the insect apocalypse. Luckily for her, and us, she is pulled out of that meandering emotional mindset by some zucchini loaf and the arrival of a frustrated young man who just had a “shit day” on the road. At first, he appears to be her son, but although the bond is equal, the entanglement is, in a way, more triggering and connective. Their relationship goes beyond blood, into something almost more entoxicating.

It’s a strongly edged beginning of a fascinating and powerfully solid play, that contemplates more than just a plague that might heal the planet by wiping us all out. A quick fix, through some white-nose killers from Europe perhaps, and as presented here at the Audible Theatre at the Minetta Lane Theatre, courtesy of the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, Swing State registers clear and dramatic in its unique and compelling posturing. Written with intent by Rebecca Gilman (A Woman of the World; Boy Gets Girl), the play tenderly and compassionately drives forward at a determined and reasonable speed, much like that the young man, Ryan, played to earnest perfection by Bubba Weiler (Broadway’s Harry Potter…; CSC’s Dead Poets Society), should have been able to go in that faulty truck of his, if it was working correctly. But this play does it right, operating at just the right velocity, as so much else malfunctions and goes wrong for Ryan and the world around him as he tries to drive forward through life. 

Swing State radiates surefootedness, never getting lost or losing its way, staying solidly in its lane, and not ever going off the road. It moves with deliberation, unpacking the growth and the seeds of truth carefully and subtly. Mary Beth Fisher (“Sense8”; Goodman’s The Sound Inside), as Peg, the ultimate widowed caretaker of the troubled land that surrounds her, envelopes her character with a sharp edge that resonates authentically. It’s a beautiful earthy performance, breathing life and death inside that fine, old face. She brilliantly stays true, navigating the complexities of love and care inside a framework of grief and loneliness, giving growth to something powerful and raw while also being determined.

Having recently lost her loving husband, and left on her own in a land that doesn’t quite fit her liberal frame, she tries her best to give care to the beautiful prairie that she and her dead husband, Jim, loved with a passion. She refuses to give it up to farmers who want to utilize it, and sap it of its nutrients and possibilities. It used to be so much more, but now the bird songs are disappearing along with the bats and the shooting stars. The prairie hill is struggling (much like the woman herself), dying all around her, one species at a time. This is all because of the business of agriculture and the uncaring mismanagement of the earth and soil that should be fostering life. And she’s going to fight back, until she can’t take it anymore.

She focuses her energy and days, bookmarked by sleepless nights, on its care, and of the young man Ryan who stops by and eats her cold soup. It’s hard to know who’s checking in on whom with these two complicated combative souls. But one is clearly troubled and in need, and the other is there, wobbling with support, even if we don’t know which one is which at any given moment. 

They fight and defend, each other and the world around them, on a beautifully constructed set made true by the fine work of set designer Todd Rosenthal (Broadway’s August: Osage County) with delicate touches of light by Eric Southern (ATC’s Tell Hector I Miss Him), subtle sound and composition by Richard Woodbury (Broadway’s Linda Vista), and perfect costuming by Evelyn M. Danner (MPAACT’s Red Summer). But the care is just there, under the surface and under the porch, fighting hard to grow life and liberation from the seeds that remain. Even if the rest of the world, as embodied by Sheriff Kris, played strong by Kirsten Fitzgerald (A Red Orchid’s The Sea Horse); the ‘bad’ cop to the more junior ‘good’ cop, Dani, played beautifully by Anne E. Thompson (Goodman’s Twilight Bowl), has a hard time believing and seeing the care and the attempt to grow as something to believe in or embrace. 

Swing State seems to be playing with the red-and-blue way of looking at growth, forgiveness, and nurturing, with one side steadfastly believing that focused care will bring forth new life and change. And the other, only seeing what it wants to, want it once was, and how it can be used, void of empathy and more adept understanding. Nothing is as simple as how the Sheriff wants to organize it, even as we witness the refracted viewpoints that grief and close-mindedness can deliver. The play, as directed with his foot steadily on the gas by Robert Falls (Broadway’s Long Day’s Journey…), unearths these dynamics carefully, even as we sit uncomfortably with the authenticity of one of the main plot point twists, seeded in something that doesn’t actually feel true or strongly constructed.

The blind-sided turn, made in a moment of madness by Peg, drives everything, pushing the piece forward to its heartbreaking collision. “Trust me on this,” but Peg’s big mistake just never really feels right or explained in enough detail, as she seems much too thoughtful to have not seen how this one call could drive the truck right off the road so forcibly. There’s a constructed explanation around grief and exhaustion that could, if promoted stronger or with more clarity, make what happened seem more true and understandable, but as written by Gilman, it’s the one framework that could use some fine-tuning. With that, this powerful Swing State truck, as a whole, could run more smoothly, driving home the red/blue dynamics with a cleaner eye. But even with that one timely miscalculation, Audible Theater’s play grows strong in its nurtured earth at the Minetta Lane Theatre downtown. An off-Broadway play from Chicago that shouldn’t be missed.