Dying City

Real Estate in Boston is a luxury commodity, and the lack of performance space has been keenly felt by the independent and fringe theatre communities. With their latest production, Christopher Shinn's "Dying City," Happy Medium Theatre Company has forged new ground. It's not the most original play and it's not revolutionary staging, but the production is fiercely independent, deeply intimate and shockingly personal. And all of this has happened because the company can't afford a theatre.

"Dying City" attempts to dissect the emotional impact of the Iraq War on the people of the United States. In it, a kitchen-sink melodrama acts as a microcosm for the vanity and humanity of a society thousands of miles away from the atrocity but deeply entwined in its politics.

A successful therapist, Kelly (Kiki Samko), is confronted by a surprise visit as she's packing to move away from the city. The twin brother of the husband she lost in Iraq a year earlier shows up at her apartment -- and his isn't a face she looks forward to seeing.

Peter (Michael Underhill), a successful gay actor, has just walked off stage in the middle of a production of "Long Day's Journey into Night." He seeks solace and advice from Kelly, wanting to form a more intimate connection with her, but she remains guarded.

Through the events of that evening and a series of flashbacks (where Underhill also plays the twin brother Craig), we discover that the brothers have more in common that their appearance. This triad fights its own war on home soil, a place where manipulation and psychological abuse stand in for bruises and bloodshed.

What makes this production unique is the familiar conventions of theatre, with which we've become so comfortable, are absent here. This play does not take place in a theatre; it takes place in the home of Samko and Underhill, a married couple in real life.

There is no lighting save the overhead lights in the apartment, there is no soundboard operator to cue the music (which tells the audience how to feel about what they are watching) and there is certainly no curtain. The audience sits in Samko and Underhill's living room and hears the sounds of the actual neighbors downstairs.

As guests in a real home, we experience the way the actors live: We smell the aromas of their kitchen and we dry our hands on their hand towels.

All the conventions of Happy Medium are still there: The boxes of wine as you enter the door, the pals and cohorts that linger after the production and hang out on the set with actors. But the intimacy of the show is so much richer than what we are used to seeing in a theatre.

We are simply watching people in their own home, and their behavior is breathtakingly natural. Samko lounges in her own clothing and Underhill runs his finger around the rim of the coffee mug he drinks from every morning. When the couple kisses, it is with the familiarity of six years of intimacy, and when the couple fights, it is with all the lingering pain of actual confrontations.

That being said, this is not a comfortable experience for the audience. We don't get cushy chairs or even the satisfaction of sitting in a darkened house where actors can't see us watching them. We are invited voyeurs, and as such, it's uncomfortable for us to laugh at a bitingly funny play.

In a traditional theatre space, we would never let Peter's narcissistic talk of his agent and his desperately good looks go unscrutinized. Still, it seems almost impolite to laugh out loud at someone when you're inches away from them and in their house.

Samko's sarcasm is not fired off (the way an actor would deliver it); it is delicately, passive-aggressively disguised in the conversation (as someone would talk who is not speaking for the benefit of an audience).

Director Cameron Cronin knows Samko and Underhill very well. He knows that Samko has a tendency to be a bit of a ham and play to her audience. In other productions this wouldn't be out of place, but here it would be barbarism, so the team makes certain that each of her actions is drawn from within.

There is never a question as to which brother Underhill is playing, because his characterizations are sharply individualized, and yet ever nuanced. Cronin blends the hard lines of the unhealthy unions so smoothy into his canvas that the audience becomes implicated in an abusive relationship. We are left feeling like we should have disapproved earlier on.

Without the struggles of tech week, lighting cues and actors hitting their marks, this team has had the time to fully rehearse and comfortably perform their play, and the results are something enviable to even the wealthiest and most professional companies.

For those audience members who feel obligated to go to the theatre but never really care for the experience, this production is the remedy.

"Dying City" runs through July 12 at an undisclosed location somewhere in the Greater Boston area (easily accessible by the T and revealed only after tickets have been purchased). For tickets visit www.dyingcityboston.brownpapertickets.com. But seating is extremely limited so your best bet is to write [email protected] and prepare to beg, barter and plead.