Swing State
Depression, anxiety, stress, grief, loss, or a significant change in life can all affect our mental and emotional health and our ability to function on a day-to-day basis. In addition, it can affect how we think, feel, and act. Still, with many individuals not understanding that they are being affected by or experiencing feelings of depression, sadness, worry, or anxiety, these issues can be challenging to comprehend or ascertain. Swing State, a play at Goodman Theatre, brilliantly deals with mental and emotional issues, giving the audience a genuine look in the mirror at how we manage them and the people we love that struggle with these anxiety disorders. Robert Falls and playwright Rebecca Gilman take an intimate look into these struggles through the eyes of a recently widowed named Peg. She lives in a 40-acre rural Wisconsin prairie backyard where she and her husband, Jim, discovered their love for native plants and worried that Quick Trips and Dollar Generals would replace the beloved enchanted woodlands.
The play starts with Peg in the kitchen, making zucchini bread and contemplating living a life of loneliness. The storyline begins during the pandemic when Jim and most people in the Prairie Protectors correlation were dead. And with the chorus frogs, Whip-poor-wills, and Nighthawks disappearing, Peg's grief made her suicidal. She plans how to end her loneliness, but Ryan, a family friend, who is more like a son, interrupts her plans when he notices Peg is acting weird. She was discussing things like her will, making final arrangements, and looking for in an old foot locker, trunk Jim kept his rifle.
Peg and Jim helped Ryan throughout his childhood; they even paid the taxes on his home while he was incarnated, so Ryan felt he owed his life to Peg. She and Jim were the only people that showed him love and tried to help him get rid of his checkered past. He began to worry that Peg may do something to harm herself and started to confront her asking questions about what and why she was making specific plans. Finally, they both come clean about their struggles with life, and Peg and Ryan agree to stop concentrating on their past; however, things change when a mysterious theft at Peg's barn occurs, and relationships are forever altered.
The cast features Mary Beth Fisher (Peg), the talented Kirsten Fitzgerald as Sheriff Kris, Anne E. Thompson (Dani), and Bubba Weiler as Ryan. Their performances on stage were remarkable and so true to life that you felt it in your soul. Fisher is absolutely outstanding as Peg, the widowed wife and retired school counselor dealing with emotional issues of grief and hopelessness. And Weiler nailed the emotionally disturbed guy coping with anxiety disorder after a traumatic childhood. Thompson is great as Dani Wisnefski, the naive Deputy working in the Cardiff Township, somewhere in the driftless area of Wisconsin, who struggles to deal with her failed marriage and find her purpose. Finally, Kristen Fitzgerald, who I have had the pleasure of seeing in several roles throughout Chicago, is always excellent and was outstanding as the hard-nosed, take no shit Sheriff Kris.
Swing State is a refreshing look at the human condition and explores how humanity deals with the realism of traumatic loss and how we examine and comprehend grief. Playwright Rebecca Gilman's touching story will hit home with anyone who has lived long enough to experience pain and the feeling of loss we can never regain. Swing State also touches on subject manners like drug use, the pandemic, people's judgment regarding Covid and wearing a mask — and the heightened divide our nation currently has regarding our politics. This play is intense, heart-warming, and a tear-jerker, all rolled into an hour and forty-five minutes of great theater — it's Chicago theater at its best!
Let's Play Theatrical Review Highly Recommends Swing State at Goodman's Owen Theatre.
Goodman Theatre
Swing State
Written by Rebecca Gilman
Directed by Robert Falls
Oct 7 - Nov 13, 2022
