The first act of Highway Patrol engages in some clever cat-and-mouse storytelling, but it’s clear from jump that Dana Delany got catfished back in the social media Wild West days of 2012. In part that’s because we realize even before curtain there’d be no reason to turn the story into a play without that inherent drama. The real question, the one that Delany and her collaborators use to craft a highly suspenseful, hugely entertaining evening at the theater, is: why?
The answer to that one-word question is chewy and complex, which enables Delany, playwright Jen Silverman and director Mike Donahue to create a twisty psychological thriller based on the online friendship she developed with a fan primarily via Twitter DMs who turned out to be a very different person than advertised.
I won’t delve further into the plot. Go see it. If you are a fan of thrillers, of true crime, of Delany herself–or, perhaps, all three–you’ll be richly rewarded. This is one of those plays that sparks after-show conversations over coffee.
Just before seeing Highway Patrol, I happened to read an insightful new essay by Rebecca Jennings about the pressure on artists to devote precious creative time and just living-life time to building up their brands on social media.
“You’ve got to offer your content to the hellish, overstuffed, harassment-laden, uber-competitive attention economy because otherwise no one will know who you are,” Jennings writes. “It’s precisely the kind of work that is uncomfortable for most artists, who by definition concern themselves with what it means to be a person in the world, not what it means to be a brand.”
And guess what? Delany started her Twitter account because ABC, the network that produced Body of Proof, the show she starred in from 2011-2013, told her she needed to do it. Those were the days when it was easy for fans to converse on Twitter with actors, authors, musicians and other creative types. Direct, unmediated connections. Thrilling in its way. But also laden with unintended, potentially dangerous consequences.
Delany deserves huge credit for not creating a woe-is-me tale of celebrity stalking. She talks about how her natural curiosity and openness to the unexpected opportunities life sometimes presents made her the perfect target for catfishing. Those traits are also why she was able to mine something other than trauma from the experience. It had its moments of real connection, even amid the subterfuge.
Delany seems like the kind of person who will continue to take an open-minded, open-hearted–though perhaps not so open-hearted as before–approach to the world. Good for her, in every sense of the phrase.
(Disclosure: My wife is a member of the Goodman’s leadership team.)
HIghway Patrol runs through February 18 at the Goodman Theatre.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
Photo by Liz Lauren
