The Dreamer Examines His Pillow

What do you get if you cross an Italian and an Irishman? If you are lucky you get the playwright John Patrick Shanley. Shanley is a writer of great consequence, eloquence, and a searching passion who makes the observer examine his or her reason for living, He doesn’t let you off of the search for answers for a minute. For Shanley, the essential struggle to discover and moreover, accept who you are is uppermost.  I am sad to say that my only exposure to Shanley was seeing his romantic comedies ITALIAN AMERICAN RECONCILIATION, the Academy Award-winning movie MOONSTRUCK, and his recent play DOUBT in which he wonders how we can ever be sure of anything. In his early play THE DREAMER EXAMINES HIS PILLOW he has the Dad say “the individual life is a dream” and he cautions his daughter to really listen to someone when they talk, even if what they say doesn’t make sense, because they are revealing the dream of his life as he experiences it. Critics have struggled to understand the “meaning” of this marvelous play with its expressionistic surreal monologues. I think that really misses the point. The play, the monologues, the passionate exchanges are what the play is about. All the characters in this play speak from their guts at all times. What a challenge for the director and the actors who may not be used to this kind of honesty or passionate examination of the themes of love, sex, parenting and how these are intricately intertwined. The current production of THE DREAMER EXAMINES HIS PILLOW is a triumph. Bravo to the director Anita Khanzadian and her amazing actors, her husband the veteran Eddie Jones, the incredible and unstoppable Amanda Tepe, and the clueless dreamer played by Jeffrey Stubblefield. They surrendered themselves to this material and the result is an exciting, literate (without being intellectual) and wonderfully satisfying evening of theatre. I felt like I was back in ancient Greece where the purpose of their plays was to put on the stage stories, passions, and moral complexities for all to see from the relative safety of their seats. The design team of the talented Victoria Profitt (sets), Steve Hull (sound design and composer) and Gelareh Khalioun (costumes) create a perfect world for the play. Proffit’s sets evoke the expressionistic, often messy landscape of modern art. Hull’s compositions are almost primitive in their sound with rhythmic drumbeats (heart beats or jungle drums) punctuating given moments. Khalioun's costumes provide a stark palette for the play of black, white. and red. In his author’s note Shanley states: in the third scene of this play, Dad Says, “the individual life is a dream.  For me personally this is a most moving idea. It frees me from my fear of death. It puts my ego where it belongs, in a place of secondary importance. It binds me to the human race, and binds the race itself to the atoms in the stars, - This I think says it all.

McCADDEN PLACE THEATRE – 1157 McCadden Place in Hollywood. Through Oct. 14th 818 765 8732