When Owen was hit by a car and subsequently fired from his job for being in the hospital too long, a good attorney landed him two large financial settlements, which he used to purchase a drop-off laundry and dry cleaners. He now has three shops and never has to work for anyone ever again. Even though his back suffered extensive damage, Owen considers the accident his winning lottery ticket. Such is the state of the American Dream in the 2020s, as essayed by John Patrick Shanley in his dryly witty, sometimes moving new play, Brooklyn Laundry, now onstage at Northlight Theatre.
Owen relates this anecdote to a customer, Fran, who’s dropping off a light load of clothes for quick turnaround. The bag weighs only eight pounds, but the minimum charge is for nine. Hearing this news hits a raw nerve with Fran. Before her boyfriend left her, she used to bring in much heavier bags. She feels caught out and harshly judged.
Of course Owen meant no offense. And he can relate. His fiancee left him a couple years back, ghosted him, in fact. Though Owen and Fran’s encounter is crunchy, he feels a “pinch” that suggests there might be something between them and asks her to dinner. After first declining the surprise invitation, Fran sticks around for more conversation. They are single people of a certain age. They are lonely. She accepts the date, which they’ll go on as soon as she returns from her trip.
And then life starts throwing curveballs. Actually, more like 100mph fastballs to the head. Can the budding relationship survive? That’s the driving tension in this 85-minute one-act, directed here with empathy by Northlight artistic director BJ Jones.
If you like plays where two reasonably mature, reasonably intelligent adults engage in conversation that ranges from witty banter to explorations of life’s big questions, Brooklyn Laundry has your ticket.
Mark Montgomery serves up Owen’s flaws, fears and modest charms with a knowing smile and body language that opens up from defensive hunch to broad gestures as he first woos, then fights, then attempts to work things out with Fran after calamity strikes and he realizes his initial instinct to walk away would leave her to drown.
Cassidy Slaughter-Mason deftly conveys Fran’s guarded, wounded soul as well as her more appealing personality traits. They are well-matched, these two, as they circle each other, gingerly make a real connection and then do the messy work of making it stick.
They do all this against a stunning backdrop of giant garment conveyers four levels high. Kudos to Jeffrey Kmiec for designing a laundry whose machinery literally looms over the characters like life itself.
Shanley is a master of this territory. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Moonstruck, followed by a Pulitzer and a Best Play Tony Award for Doubt.
This play doesn’t rank as high as those works. In particular, a few of the scenes run long and belabor a point of view. But it’s a very good play, and it scratches that itch to spend some time seeing how a relationship unfolds between two characters you can root for.
Here, Shanley ably explores questions about what it means to find your person in life, how difficult it can be to hang on to them–especially when they may not feel the same way about you on any given day–and, most of all, how worthwhile it can be to engage in that struggle on the way to a rewarding life together.
Brooklyn Laundry runs through May 12 at Northlight Theatre.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
Photo by Michael Brosilow
