Playwright: Elizabeth Egloff
At: The Trap Door Theatre, 1655 W. Cortland
Phone: 773/384-0494; $16 ( two-for-one on Thursdays )
Through: May 5
By Catey Sullivan
The mythology of swans is torrid and abundant. Consider William Butler Years' 'Leda and the Swan,' a poem that beats with sensuality as it describes the rape of a young woman by the god Zeus, disguised as a swan. Or 'Swan Lake,' wherein good and evil take on the form of a white swan and a black swan. The Valkeries of Germanic myth were said to have the power to change themselves into swans, and in the fairy tale 'The Ugly Duckling,' the swan becomes iconic for all that is strong, gorgeous and graceful.
That rich literary and symbolic history provides a backdrop to Elizabeth Egloff's The Swan, the story of a contemporary young woman who falls in love with the titular bird. Directed by Jen Ellison and John Kahara for the Trap Door Theatre, the brief ( clocking in at roughly 100 minutes ) , superficially bizarre story explores a tempestuous, high-stakes emotional journey that begins when a swan ( Kahara ) crashes through the window of the unlucky-in-love Dora Hand ( Kim McKean ) .
This is a messy, discomfiting work that one moment skirts the parameters of the squirm-inducing issue of bestiality, the next soars into absolute absurdity and the next turns kitchen-sink realistic. The swan looks not like a great winged animal but like a young Apollo. That's probably not coincidental—one myth about the Greek God describes how he flew on the back of a swan. When Kahara, naked as a jaybird and trembling with avian flits, lands in Dora's living room, she meets him with a mix of fear, awe and gasping wonder. In short order, the two lonely, beautiful creatures start playing checkers together and bonding over meals of lettuce and sprouts. It's a weird, potentially alienating situation, but Trap Door makes it work, thanks in large part to an astounding performance by Kahara. He's a fascinating and wholly convincing as a bird-man hybrid.
Egloff mixes gritty realism with dreamy surrealism with mixed results. It's jarring when the script lurches abruptly from elevated and fantastical ( Dora and the swan getting passionate ) to scruffy and down to earth. ( Dora's human lover demanding she go with him to couples counseling ) . It feels as if Egloff couldn't fully decide which style suited the story best, and so decided to try to have it both ways.
But the performances here are good enough to ensure that the oddness isn't an insurmountable stumbling block. McKean's Dora is lovely and loving as window/divorcee who finds something precious, elusive and life-affirming in the swan. As Dora's married lover, Dana Wall blusters and roils with the kind of frustration one expects from someone who is losing his lover to another species.