Dying City at the Lincoln Center

Lately it seems like I have noticed a shortage of really good theater in the city.  Maybe I am jaded from seeing too many shows, but so many of them fall flat.  I walk out of the theatre having enjoyed myself if I am lucky, but not really having been affected by the show.  Not so with Dying City.  I walked out thinking about the show and what I had just seen.

It's been a long time since I have seen a pas de deux onstage with such force.  Deftly acted, well crafted, and highly enjoyable, Dying City left me haunted by the ghosts of my soul as the show reopened wounds that we all have deep within us.

Dying City tells the tale of two twin brothers, one straight, one gay, and the wife of the straight brother.  The married brother has gone to Iraq for a second tour of duty, and dies while there.  What is left behind are the brother and the wife, both deeply scarred people who have to figure out if they can ever pick up the broken pieces of their lives.  But it is not just the death of the brother that has broken their lives, instead these cracks go much deeper, and Dying City unashamedly explores those cracks.

The show consists of a series of current scenes and flashbacks to the night before the one brother left for Iraq.  The brothers are played by the same actor, and this leads to the one problem I did have with the show.  At times, the excuses used to get the actor off stage so he can change costumes seem a little contrived and almost become annoying.  The writer and director should have found slightly cleaner ways to create these changes.

Dying City is only running for a few more weeks.  If you haven't seen it, now is the time to get a ticket.  This is intimate theater at it's best. 

On an almost unrelated note, I did have some problems while watching the show.  However, they had little to to with the show itself, but I do want to mention them.  First, when a can of Red Bull was thrown by one of the actors, the sickly sweet smell of spilled Red Bull almost chased me from the theater.  But that's minor.  Second, PLEASE, if you are at a show, don't talk.  It seems like the older patrons at the Lincoln Center felt they needed to discuss the show while it went on.  "This is a flashback," and "That's why they call it Dying City," were two of the loudly spoken comments made during the show.  Wait until after the show and then explain it to each other, PLEASE. 

tags: dying city  lincoln center  new york  theater  stage  acting  new york city  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit