DEAD CITY

It's been a heck of a week - closing, getting the keys and moving in really eats up seven days of playreading. But this one should be easy. Heck, I could write this in three words:

Hillman.
Was.
Right.

To those that know her, this comes as no surprise, I am sure. But what specifically was she right about this week?

Sheila is one of the most gifted American playwrights alive-- no lie.

Loosely inspired by Jame Joyce's Ulysses, Sheila Callaghan's Dead City is a powerhouse play, bursting with energy and ideas and character and fun. It might just be the Patti Smith references talking, but there's more than a bit of Sam Shepard in Sheila Callaghan. It's hard to recognize now, but there was a time when Shepard was rock 'n' roll theater: cutting edge and young and deeply in tune with the musical scene. Callaghan feels the same - it's a breath of fresh air in the stale theater, the kind of play Vampire Weekend might write, the kind of theater TV On The Radio could create.

I'm going to go ahead and slap the "Somebody Do This Play" tag on Dead City, knowing full well that some of the stage directions will crush any mortal theater:

(GABRIEL approaches SAMANTHA, still sleeping. Hey lays each one of his arms tenderly on her head, her shoulders, her breasts, her face, her womb, her thighs.)


"But then, blue wildflowers sprout from his head."


(Blue wildflowers begin sprouting from GABRIEL's head. He panics.)

But it's a gender-swapped, time-shifted, location-changed Ulysses that features great women's roles and a wonderful ensemble experience in a script that effortlessly flows from social satire to dreamscape ... you're going to let a few blue wildflowers get in your way?