PicksInSix Review: FLOOD - Shattered Globe Theatre
“FLOOD” Hits Absurdist High-Water Mark!
PicksInSix® Review | Guest Contributor | Ronald Keaton
In today’s world, we are so attuned to what our own realities are and don’t always know how to adjust them to fit the moment at hand. We forget sometimes that satire in all its challenging glory is a prime path to making such changes and to look at life in a totally different way. Shattered Globe Theatre’s Chicago premiere of “FLOOD” by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen grabs its audience by the throat and takes it on an unusual journey of absurdity—admittedly the kind of trip we are not taken on much these days in the theatre.
Deen has fashioned a story with what would normally be quite opposing elements. The Lauren Nichols design of the set we view in its telling—an apartment or condo setting that looks like a colorized version of an old 1950s situation comedy (read: Father Knows Best, Bachelor Father, etc.)—sets us up from the beginning; there is no doubt as to its functionality as the story goes. There is a desk with a man (an impervious HB Ward as Darren, the family patriarch) sitting with sections of a model he’s been working on for quite a while. Darren wears a mask for practically the entire play, one that covers his eyes and nose and hairline; there are other identical masks hanging on the wall behind him. Darren’s attitudes are almost authoritarian and solid, as if it were what he learned from his own parents, and the hierarchy here is well-defined. Mr. Ward is appropriately manipulative and commanding in Darren’s position up center stage, almost dictator-like in perception; he controls every conversation, every breathing moment between husband and wife. We don’t know about his job, his early history…he is simply a constant where he is.
Meanwhile, Darren’s wife Edith (the great SGT stalwart Linda Reiter) is frustrated with her husband, because he seems to have created an impenetrable cocoon of focus on the project he is building. And all she wants to do is have a cup of tea with him and rebuild those ties that seem to be rapidly disappearing from her emotional reference. Edith is a grand example of that 50’s housewife—keeping the home in order, doing most of the talking to the children—while wondering openly for the audience to see how long she can maintain this “peaceful” aura. Ms. Reiter expertly shares Edith’s feelings and uses only a glance or a body shift to get it all across. Edith is always asking questions. Indeed, Darren and Edith have a “book of unanswered questions” that has regular entries put into it—all pointing toward the day when the building and creating is done and they can sit and actually talk about those questions, and whatever else might come up. Like their future.
There are two children—Darren Jr. (Carl Collins) and Edith Jr. (Sarah Patin)—who are totally unlike their parents in nearly every way. They live on lower floors of this tall apartment building. At first, we think they live together, to be honest—an absurdity if ever there was one in the family dynamic. But we do discover in time that they have their own lives (Darren Jr. is actually a father himself). And, they are wet. It’s raining outside at this locale, set by a beach bordering the ocean. And the water is rising, and apparently very quickly.
In experiencing all this, the kids are trying to share with Mom in phone calls—the phones, by the way, are simple tin cans with twine as electrical cord—that they are drowning and they need help. But their cries go unheeded, for the most part, as Darren has convenient excuses and reactions for everything that happens, except for the obvious: the building is flooding. And not just now; RIGHT now.
Directed by Ken Prestininzi in detailed, intimate strokes that all strike a familiar chord, Deen has thrown many of the elements in theatre of the absurd to good use. Dialogue here harkens back strongly to Beckett and Ionesco. Disparate elements of time and space here create much debate on what exactly this family is facing. There are moments that comment in their presentation on everything from climate change to social media to parental regard for children to marital challenges to the creative impulse in people… I could go on and on. FLOOD is a difficult piece to absorb, but upon examination, that’s actually in its favor. Certainly, there is lots for the audience to chew on. And I won’t share the play’s ending. But Deen and Shattered Globe Theatre are both to be commended for taking a chance on new work in an art form that audiences really do not see much of anymore in a full play. “FLOOD” forces the audience to look at life in a more encompassing way than the day-to-day aspect by actually utilizing that same thought to show the absurdities we all face every day… and how one family deals with them.
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR | RONALD KEATON received an Equity Jeff Award for the performance of his one-man show CHURCHILL. www.solochicagotheatre.com Coming soon, his new solo play “Echo Holler.” www.echoholler.com
PHOTO|Liz Lauren
Shattered Globe Theatre
presents
Chicago Premiere
FLOOD
Theater Wit
1229 W Belmont
through March 9, 2024
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