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Fever Dreams: Intriguing But Also Flawed

Puzzling. Confusing. Infuriating. Interesting. I could add more adjectives to describe my reaction to Fever Dreams (of animals on the verge of extinction), now at TheaterWorks Hartford through Sunday, November 3.

It is well-acted and directed with a very detailed log cabin set that is someplace in the woods.

At times, the play defies categorization. Is it suspense? A mystery? A Stephen King-inspired horror story? A story of friendship? Male competition?

Playwright Jeffrey Lieber doesn’t give us much help. In his notes, he talks about a play he had seen years ago at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. He goes on to say his intent was to write a play “mostly for an audience that might also resemble dangerous, interesting, moving, funning, challenging, life.”

The exquisite set by Luke Cantarella is a log cabin in the woods. It is detailed from the kitchen with the cabinet door that refuses to stay shut, the fire pit in front, and even the canoe on stage right. Lindsay Jones provides original music (guitar) and sound design and Sherrice Mojgani does effective lighting.

Part of the issue is that the play changes genres unpredictably. It opens with Adele threatening Zachary, yet only seconds later, it is revealed as a role-play before the two fall into bed. It is a rendezvous between lovers that has occurred over the years. I must admit, my mind immediately went to the play Venus in Furs.

The cabin in the woods gives off a spooky vibe, which Lieber uses. And, since a gun is part of that first scene, it must go off sometime during the play. After all, Russian playwright Anton Chekhov was famously quoted as saying if a gun is shown, it must go off.

We have a story of Zachary and Miller – best friends in college and how Adele has impacted that relationship. Simply put, just as Zachary and Adele meet and are in the early stages of a possible relationship, Miller shows up and ends up with the girl. He and Adele have been married for years. Zachary has never gotten over Adele. He and she have been meeting up at the cabin one or two times a year.

Adele (or Addie, as Zach calls her), is an academic who studies insects and their mutations, extinctions, and life cycles. Miler’s career path is vague; it appears he is still hanging on in the music industry. Zach is a physician who spent years working for Doctors Without Borders.

Lieber tries to keep us off balance with the relationships between the three shifting and turning. The question I kept asking myself was this: how much of what the characters say is true and how much is a giant game?

One of the problems is that it is difficult to like two of the three characters. Adele is beautifully played by Lana Young, but the character is quixotic. Young makes it clear that Zach loves Adele more than she loves him. She has a set of rules concerning what can and cannot be discussed when they meet. It seems that what goes on outside of the cabin is off-limits. At one point, she indicates that if it isn’t discussed, then it isn’t real.

Miller seems too often to change moods and personality on the whim of the playwright. We never get a handle on what his motivation is. Tim DeKay reveals Miller to have a streak of meanness that controls him.

The only character I felt any positive emotions about was Zach, played by Doug Savant. He seems like the victim of a Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? type “get the guest” game. Except here, he is someone both Miller and Adele claim to like or love.

Rob Ruggiero has done his usual fine directing job, keeping the play as real as possible. At times, Adele’s references to her research findings about insects seemed muffled or unclear. Some of the obscurities were the fault of the playwright, and, at times, some were the fault of the dialogue being too quiet.

Lieber saves a twist for late in the play. Miller reveals something that has been hidden that impacts the relationship between the three.

The problem is that this new information raises multiple questions about ethics, behavior, and morality. It leaves the audience with multiple questions. In some ways, the last ten minutes of this play (which runs about two hours with intermission) seems like a starting point, not an ending.

Did Lieber fulfill his intent? To me, Fever Dreams seems more like an episode of a reality show rather than something that resembles “dangerous, interesting, moving, funning, challenging, life.”

Tickets are available at TWHartford.org.