Following its searing fall production of A View From the Bridge, Shattered Globe Theatre returns to Theater Wit with the Chicago premiere of Mashuq Mushtaq Deen’s absurdist play Flood. It’s billed as a comedy but, like most absurdist works, this one proves difficult to bucket into a neat category. Speaking of buckets, the characters could use a few–along with some boats, or an ark, even–if they’re to survive the rising waters of an ocean that’s subsuming their seafront community street by disappearing street.
But the view’s still sunny and serene from the 19th-floor condo of Edith (Linda Reiter, admirably carrying most of the acting load) and Darren (a mostly masked H.B. Ward), a midcentury modern time capsule where the woman of the house waits for the man to finish his projects before they might share a cup of tea.
The problem is, Darren’s sculpturing of tongue depressors and toothpicks has been dragging on for years now as he positions each sliver of wood with a magician’s flourish before pausing a good while to appreciate the work. Even as devoted as Edith is to her role of quietly waiting–Darren likes to know where she is at all times, so forget about any outings–it gets to be a bit much for her. The play centers on Edith’s efforts to get some sense from Darren of when they can enjoy some time together. And just what is he making, anyway?
It will be a masterpiece, he tells her, and she’ll sense when it’s almost done. Then, and only then, can she prepare the tea. Meanwhile, their children, Edith Junior (Sarah Patin) and Darren Junior (Carl Collins) are barely staying afloat–literally–on a lower level of the same building. They pick up their soup-can phones to beg for help. Edith starts to think there might be a real problem beyond faulty plumbing, but Darren isn’t having any of it. And the water keeps rising.
This is a well-performed but thematically slight one-act that sends its allegorical wave–the powerful and their head-in-the-sand sycophants are blithely leading the world to utter ruin while dismissing the protests of anyone with half a clue–crashing over the audience repeatedly.
Still, it’s an important message and this is a sometimes-clever way of delivering it. Absurdist theater gets tougher by the minute as the world to which it sets itself in contrast grows ever more disconnected from reality.
Shattered Globe’s production of Flood runs through March 9 at Theater Wit.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
Photo by Liz Lauren
